Sight
by chaotic.souljam
Summary: There is much worth noticing that often escapes the eye. AU. Eventual HaruMako. One-sided RinMako.
1. (1) Haruka

A/N: It's been a while since I last tried writing a multi-chapter fic. Hopefully, I manage to see this through this time...

The story is set in the ending!universe so think deserts and turbans and maybe even camels.

* * *

[9]

"Haruka, come over here."

The command cuts through the boisterous cheering of the blood-spattered men. Haruka looks up at Leader for a split-second before lowering his gaze submissively. The bruises on his arms have yet to heal.

The rough steel manacles around his ankles chafe against his grimy skin. The chain dangling between the iron bands drags on the dirt floor, clanking as he makes his way towards Leader. The dagger hanging at his side is little comfort; he is too small, too young, still too weak to defend himself against someone as brutal as Leader. For now, he must bow his head if he is to survive.

He stops in front of Leader, eyes trained on his sandaled feet. He tries to gauge Leader's mood; he seems to be in high spirits. Maybe he'd be less likely to hit Haruka this time.

Leader's meaty fist shoves something forward. It falls to the floor in front of Haruka in a tumble of rags crusty with dried blood. It takes a few seconds and a pitiful whimper from the crumpled heap for Haruka to register the trembling form cowering before him.

_Oh, it's a person_.

"Listen, Haruka," Leader's voice takes on a mockingly father-like tone. "See this kid here?"

He nudges the boy with his right foot, eliciting another round of muffled sobs as the boy curls into himself. He seems to be around Haruka's age, if his size and the softness of his features is any indication.

"He's our new meal ticket, you see? He'll make me the richest man in the whole of Hanifa!"

Disgust roils in Haruka's stomach as he takes in Leader's wide, cruel smile and his loud, ringing laughter. He takes care to mask it though, because it's never good to make Leader mad. He's had seven long years to get that drilled into his head. Still, using people for money is something Haruka can never get used to. His mind whispers a snide _hypocrite_ before he silences it with cold rationality; he does what he does to survive, unlike Leader who kills and maims and tortures for his sick, perverse drive for wealth and power.

_Just how greedy are you, old man?_

"Boy, get up," Leader barks at the still-whimpering boy. He shakes his head and hugs himself tighter.

That is his first mistake.

All traces of good humor gone, Leader grabs the boy's dirty, brown hair and lifts him up.

"Think you can ignore me?!" he snarls. The boy flinches, and Haruka notices his unseeing green eyes for the first time. A fresh wave of pity rushes through him. Being blind is bad enough; being a blind slave is torture beyond even what Haruka—who has seen more than his fair share of cruelty despite his age—can imagine.

"Leader," he finds himself speaking up. His heart thuds against his chest, his mind screaming at him _what are you doing, this is a mistake, he'll kill you._

Yet he stands his ground; he may not be able to do much, but for some reason, he wants to protect this little blind boy. Perhaps it's the way his eyes, despite their blindness, seem to look right into him. Or perhaps he remembers once being just like that boy and hoping that someone would come and save him. No one did, and he learned to protect himself, but this time, maybe even the powerless him that he despises can make a difference.

"What is it you require of me?" Questioning Leader is a risk Haruka would not have taken under any other circumstances—Leader never likes hearing even the slightest insinuation that he is ignorant or worse, _wrong_—but it's the only way he can think of to turn Leader's attention away from the boy.

Luckily, Leader just utters an irritated 'tch' and drops the boy carelessly. Haruka almost takes a step towards him, but holds back. Showing concern for the boy might backfire horribly on the both of them; Leader has an infamous cruel streak, striking not at those who cross him, but at the people they care about.

"Get him cleaned up then put him in the blue room." Leader takes a huge gulp from the metal tankard beside him, waving at a passing slave for more ale.

Haruka nods, head still bowed, and gathers the shaking boy into his arms as gently as he dares. The boy's small hands grip him tightly.

"Come on," he whispers softly. Haruka struggles to keep his stoic expression in place when he feels hot tears soaking the front of his frayed tunic; not for the first time, he curses the weakness in his limbs that prevents him from just taking his dagger and slashing the throats of every single man who has ever hurt another purely for his own enjoyment.

_I'd start with you, Leader_.

To hide the rebellion in his eyes, he turns and leads the boy away. It's difficult with the boy clinging so tightly to him, but Haruka doesn't have the heart to push him away.

"And Haruka," Leader calls out to him. "Make sure he doesn't go anywhere."

The _or else_ hangs, thick and menacing, in the air.

Haruka kneels before the boy, a damp cloth in his hand. He would have prepared a proper bath, a full tub that he can soak in, but the water delivery has been delayed for another week so there is hardly any water to spare.

He starts with the boy's dust-covered feet, running the cloth gently across the soles. He looks up at the boy sitting on the bed and finds green eyes staring through him, almost as if their owner can see him. Haruka shakes his head.

_He's blind. Of course he can't see me._

Haru continues, moving from the exposed skin of the boy's legs to his arms, deciding that the clothes can come off later when the boy has calmed down somewhat.

A muffled sniffle draws his attention from his task. The boy buries his face in his hands, heart-wrenching sobs of _Mama, Papa_ bursting from dry, chapped lips.

Haruka doesn't know the first thing about comforting and it's not normal for him to care so much for someone other than himself, but he stands and wraps his arms around the boy, mimicking the way Cook used to hug him after Leader's beatings. At least, before Leader had her beheaded for making the wrong soup three years ago.

"My name is Haruka," he says when the boy's tears dwindle to the occasional hitching sob. He doesn't expect an answer, really; he introduced himself just because it seems like the normal thing to do and he figures a bit of normalcy might help.

"Makoto," the boy replies against his chest. "My name's Makoto."

_Makoto_.

Haruka turns the word over and over in his head. It sounds right, rolls off his tongue perfectly as if he's always been meant to say it.

"Okay then, Makoto," Haruka pats Makoto's head awkwardly then carefully pries him off so he could resume his task. It wouldn't do to keep Leader waiting.

It takes a fair bit of cajoling and a few more pieces of damp cloth, but Haruka manages to get most of the dirt and dried blood off. Taking off Makoto's tunic reveals a smattering of dark purple bruises on otherwise unblemished skin. He lacks the characteristic markings of one born in servitude.

_He wasn't originally a slave then_.

Haruka thinks of the scars on his back, his legs, his arms, and feels torn between gratitude at the reminder that there is still good in the world and envy at the fact that he will probably never experience what Makoto had before Leader snatched him up for whatever reason.

As Makoto lies shivering on the bed with the blankets wrapped securely around his naked body, Haruka bends down to pick up the discarded clothes.

"Wait!"

Haruka cocks his head in inquiry.

"Can I keep those?" he asks meekly.

"But they're dirty. You can't wear them anymore." Haruka frowns.

"Please?"

"Okay," Haruka relents. "I'll have them washed and returned to you."

He turns to leave.

"Thank you."

Haruka almost jumps in surprise. No one has ever thanked him before. It's always _hurry up, boy_ or simple grunts whenever he finishes an errand quickly.

The warmth spreading in his chest tells him he wouldn't mind being thanked again.

* * *

When Haruka reports back to Leader and is told he'll be sleeping in the blue room to keep an eye on Makoto, he realises just what Leader is asking him to do.

He intends to cage Makoto, keep him away even from the other slaves. The reason eludes him—_why bother isolating someone who can't even see?_—but Leader's word is the law here in this tiny little outpost in the middle of the desert. Haruka's heart sinks.

_He wants to use me to keep Makoto from escaping._

Makoto—poor, blind Makoto—may be used to being in the dark, but he doesn't seem strong enough to thrive in the darkness like Haruka can. Haruka is used to being alone, used to the other slaves shying away from him; it comes with being Leader's 'little spy' after all. But Makoto deserves none of that, and Haruka is afraid that the one person he thought he could be friends with would come to hate him.

But the days pass, and it seems that Makoto is content in having only Haruka for company. They have their meals together, and when Makoto has difficulties brought about by his handicap, Haruka quickly offers to help just so he can hear the quiet gratitude in his voice.

Those first few days of Makoto's captivity are a welcome reprieve from his usual routine of training his body to exhaustion every single day. He spends the daylight hours listening to Makoto talk of his life before; it pains the boy, Haruka can tell, but his stories are a beacon amidst the bleakness of Haruka's own experiences so he doesn't make any effort to stop Makoto. Besides, Haru believes that it's Makoto's way of dealing with the nightmarish turn his life has taken—by focusing on the positive things, he likely hopes to drown the shadows.

And it seems reliving his happy memories is a cathartic experience because once he runs out of words, he reaches for Haruka and lets his fingers glide over Haruka's face for the first time.

Haruka stiffens at the touch, but lets him continue until Makoto memorises the contours of his nose, his chin, his mouth. He's let his guard down, he knows. He also knows this way leads to nothing but pain and heartbreak, but even Haruka can't completely stamp out the natural human desire for companionship.

"I'm glad Haru is here with me."

Makoto's affection is something new to Haruka, and he wonders if being with the blind boy will always be like this, all softness and light, a sharp contrast to the dark nights he spends crouching, waiting in the darkness with his dagger clutched in his short fingers, waiting and waiting for that window of opportunity to slink in and grab whatever it is Leader wants for himself. A spy, a thief in the night.

Aside from his gentle attention, everything else about Makoto—the defeated slump of his shoulders, the despair in his dull, green eyes—screams his resignment to his fate. Haruka wants to shake him, to tell him to not give up ever, but Haruka knows that not everyone has the resilience to keep fighting, especially against insurmountable odds.

It is then, as he sits by Makoto's bed, hands stroking dark brown hair as Makoto sleeps fitfully, that Haruka decides to become strong enough for the both of them.

* * *

Nothing lasts forever. Indeed, the fragile peace between Haru and Makoto is shattered when Leader kicks the door open just as Haru is spooning some watery broth into Makoto's mouth.

"Time for you to earn your keep, boy," he chuckles.

Makoto gropes for Haru's hand, and once he finds it, he grips it tightly in fear. Haru squeezes back, unwilling to let go despite common sense telling him to pull back, to not show Leader the soft spot he has developed for Makoto, the chink in the armor he has cultivated to protect himself.

Leader's sharp gaze homes in on their clasped hands, and Haru can practically see the gears turning in his head. The satisfied glint in his cold slate-blue eyes sends uneasiness skittering up his spine. It's too late to pretend he doesn't care a whit for Makoto, so Haru pulls the smaller boy closer, trying to quell Makoto's trembling. He braces himself for pain when Leader swaggers up to them.

"You, boy," Leader addresses Makoto. "I have a question for you."

Makoto's dull green gaze stares straight ahead, terror freezing his thin limbs. Worried, Haru nudges him in an attempt to bring him back to himself. He manages a quiet '_Haru?' _before Leader grabs the collar of Makoto's shirt and hauls him to his feet. The bowl crashes onto the ground, spilling hot broth on the sandy floor.

"It seems someone has been stealing food from me," Leader's deceptively conversational tone is like silk-wrapped steel. "Who is it?"

Makoto shakes his head wildly. "I don't know!"

"It wasn't him, I've been with him this whole time," Haru hurries to defend Makoto.

"I know it wasn't him, you fucking idiot!" Leader spits in Haru's direction. "I'm asking him who did."

"Please," Makoto whimpers. Haru isn't sure if he's pleading for Leader to stop or for Haru to make him stop.

Leader's patience runs out. He backhands Makoto and starts shaking him violently. His queries grow increasingly loud and agitated while Makoto's sobs echo throughout the blue-walled room.

Haru can hear the blood pounding in his ears, his mind stubbornly focusing on the pulsing of Leader's throat.

_A quick slash would do the trick._

Except it's not physically possible for him to get close enough. Leader has every advantage over him—speed, reach, agility. It would be an exercise in futility to try to take him on now.

But he can't just stand there and watch Leader slowly kill Makoto. Tears of helplessness gather in the corners of his eyes.

"Just tell him whatever you know, Makoto," Haru pleads, hating the way his voice trembles in fear. He doubts Makoto knows anything substantial, and he has no idea why Leader assumes he does, but Leader won't stop until he gets what he wants.

Makoto's thrashing stills. He slumps forward, brown locks hiding his blind eyes. For one terrifying moment, Haru thinks he's dead.

Then he speaks.

"A boy with yellow hair. He works in the stables. He has pink eyes and a scar on his chest shaped like a star." Makoto's voice is a broken whisper.

_Nagisa?_

Nagisa is one of the slaves that Haru had met before he started his spy training. He remembers playing with a little blond boy by the well near the kitchen back-door. He had gotten that star-shaped scar when one of the Leader's men decided a moving target would be perfect for improving his aim.

_But how did Makoto know about him?_

He's never even met Nagisa, and Makoto's description—blond hair and pink eyes—is not something a blind person can come up with. Haru's mind whirls wildly, looking for an explanation, but nothing he can come up with makes any sense.

Leader's mouth splits into a triumphant grin. Without a word, he sets Makoto down and pats his head. Makoto flinches, but stays silent.

"Good boy."

Leader leaves the room, and Makoto takes that as his cue to fall to his knees, tears rolling down his smudged cheeks.

"They're going to kill him." Makoto wraps his arms around himself. "They're going to kill him and it's all my fault."

Haru crouches beside him, unsure where to start. How does one go about asking how a blind boy can describe the color of the eyes of someone he's never met?

"How—?" he trails off. He clears his throat. "How did you know about Nagisa?"

Makoto starts rocking back and forth, a flurry of mumbled_ 'I'm so sorry'_ fighting its way past a trembling lower lip.

Haru places a hesitant hand on Makoto's back. Makoto snaps upright, desparation coming off him in waves.

"I didn't mean to! I didn't want to say anything, but—!"

"I know," Haru interrupts guiltily. It was Haru who had told Makoto to talk, not knowing that his words would essentially doom Nagisa to Leader's cruelty.

Yet Makoto doesn't blame him; he turns the fault to himself instead. Haru is lost for words, so he sits beside him, biting his lip in consternation at his inability to help.

"That man was planning to hurt you if I didn't say anything," Makoto whispers, his head swiveling around to fix Haru with a tearful and oddly seeing gaze. "I could see it."

"You probably think I'm mad, right? A blind person claiming to be able to see," Makoto swipes an arm across his wet eyes. "But it's true."

Confusion and disbelief mar Haru's expression, but he sees no reason for Makoto to lie so he keeps quiet and lets him continue.

"At first, I thought what I could do was normal, you know? It was like most of the time I couldn't see, but then there came these moments when images would just pop up in my mind—first, it was the skirt Mama wore, then Papa carrying a shovel on his shoulder."

A self-deprecating smile spread across Makoto's face.

"Then one day, I heard some women gossiping about some nobleman who had arrived the day before. Immediately, I saw a man dressed in really nice clothes with the old blacksmith who lived across the town. He was making a really fancy sword. It was really pretty so I told Mama we should go and see it."

"I was really persistent so eventually, Mama gave in and took me to the blacksmith's shop."

Makoto takes a deep, shuddering breath and falls silent for a few heartbeats until he seems to shake off the weight of his memories and plows on.

"When Mama saw that I was telling the truth and the nobleman really was there, she pulled me aside and told me to never mention what I could do to anyone. I'd never heard her sound so afraid, so I promised never to tell."

"But secrets have a way of coming out no matter how hard you try to hide it." Makoto shakes his head sadly.

"It was the autumn festival, a few months before my seventh birthday. You see, in our town, we had this tradition where men dressed up as evil spirits and chased the children. Whoever is caught first has to climb the really tall pole in the middle of the town square. Of course, I've only seen it a few times since my 'sight' was still unreliable, coming and going on its own whims."

"Anyway, Rei—he was the son of the nice couple who lived a few houses away from ours—was caught first. He was almost half-way up the pole when—"

Makoto's hold on Haru's fingers tightens. Haru scoots closer to Makoto, providing what silent support he can.

"When I saw his foot slip," Makoto continues. He is shaking badly now; reliving this memory is clearly taking its toll on him. "Without thinking, I grabbed the nearest person I could and told him to help Rei because he's going to fall."

"It was only later, after Mama took me and ran back to the house, that I realised what I had done. In the end, Rei was saved when his father caught him before he hit the ground. I had managed to get the warning out in time, but that also meant everyone now knew there was something strange about me."

"But the townspeople were really nice; they kept quiet about it mostly. The only thing that changed was sometimes people would come to me with questions like_ 'is this year's harvest going to be enough?' _or_ 'will my child be born healthy?'_"

"I was happy that even I, who had to constantly be taken care of, could help people in my own way. I began trying to understand my ability, so I could give aid even to those who don't know they need it. Eventually, I could control it enough to choose when to 'see'."

Makoto turns to Haru, and Haru sees the hurt of isolation—of being different—in the depths of Makoto's dark green eyes. It's familiar, a dull throbbing in his heart, and Haru is glad yet sorry that they share the same pain even if Makoto's must be infinitely greater than his.

"Then one winter night, they came for me," Makoto murmurs. "A whole group of men brandishing swords and torches, demanding that I be handed over immediately. I saw them coming too late; Papa had to stay behind so me and Mama could get away."

Makoto clenches his eyes shut, tears flowing freely down his cheeks. "It was that moment—when I saw Papa get cut down like he was nothing—that I began to curse my ability. I wished so, so hard that I had just been born ordinary like everyone else."

"Maybe then Papa wouldn't have been killed, and Mama wouldn't have gotten sick because we didn't have enough food or money. When that man finally found me, I begged him to kill me."

An involuntary gasp bursts from Haru; despite all he has suffered, Haru has never thought he wanted to die. Perhaps it's a testament to the severity of Makoto's suffering or perhaps it's proof of his fragility, but Haru grips Makoto's shoulder, urges him to face him.

Haru wants, more than anything he's ever wanted before, to erase that despair, that deep, dark despair that threatens to swallow Makoto.

"Look at me, Makoto," Haru says earnestly. "Can you see it? Someday, I'll become strong enough to take you away from here. We'll run and run and run and never look back."

The light in Makoto's eyes may just be Haru's imagination, but he likes to think it's hope for the future that shines in his unseeing eyes.

"Do you really mean that, Haru?"

"Aa."

Makoto throws himself at Haru. He almost misses, but Haru is quick enough to catch him.

With his face buried in Haru's stomach, Makoto whispers "Thank you, Haru."

The next day, Haru seeks Nagisa out. The groom wordlessly leads him to an unmarked grave on top of a hill a few metres from their hideout.

Haru has nothing to say, but he places a bunch of yellow wildflowers on the raised dirt before he leaves.

When Makoto asks about Nagisa, Haru lies and tells him he's been sent away. Makoto nods, but Haru knows he isn't fooled. Yet, Makoto smiles and wishes Nagisa luck on his journey. Makoto is strange that way.

Haru finds Makoto's soft-heartedness both frustrating and admirable. However, keeping Makoto company quickly becomes the only thing Haru had to look forward to. His training gets harsher and harsher, but Makoto is always there to welcome him back, to ease the physical injuries—the bruises, the calluses on his fingers, the long, shallow slashes on his limbs—with the soothing balm of his voice.

For the most part, Makoto is left alone, barring the occasions when Leader would come and force him to reveal the times and locations of passing caravans so he could take his men and loot and pillage to his heart's content. After Leader's visits, Makoto's sleep is always plagued by nightmares that cease only when Haru slips into bed beside him.

They fall into a routine that feels as natural as breathing, and Haru begins to forget what it was like before he met Makoto. But time stops for no man, and when Leader decides that Haru is no longer doing enough to deserve his place in their group, Haru has no choice but to obey when Leader sends him out more often.

Yet, even as his world gets darker and darker, Makoto remains constant, and Haru thinks that as long as he has Makoto, he will never lose himself.

He never considers the possibility that it's Makoto who might disappear.

* * *

A/N: I have this bad habit of wanting to change chapters that have already been posted, but I'll post a notice in the coming chapters if I do change something.


	2. (2) Makoto

[12]

Makoto isn't sure what rouses him from his fitful slumber, but he jerks awake with a gasp in the deathly silence of night that is broken only by the occasional rumblings of a passing guard. The lingering tendrils of a dream cling to him, hinting at the warmth of days long past. He thinks he smells his mother's little flower garden, but that's impossible. That, along with everything from his childhood, is gone, leaving behind only trace memories in the form of the echo of a lullaby as he hovers between sleep and wakefulness or the imagined brush of a nurturing hand on his forehead.

It's been almost three years since that day when he lost so much in the ashes of his mother's death. Three years since he found that hope comes in the unlikeliest of places, in the voice of the boy who took care of Makoto without asking for anything in return, in the kindness in his hands as he washed away the grime of Makoto's past so he can look back on it and let the happy moments shine bright enough to eclipse the pain.

_Haru._

His hand creeps along the sheets, looking for that tell-tale warmth of another body, then remembers that Haru had left for another mission two days ago. Makoto isn't really a very good judge of the passing of time, considering he can't easily tell between night and day, but the meals that are delivered to his room are a good enough approximation, he thinks.

_Six meals since Haru left_.

He and Haru never really talk about how long he would be gone whenever Leader sends him out, and Makoto doesn't want to pry too much into what exactly those 'errands' entail; Haru's subdued manner coupled with his subtle need for comfort when he quietly sneaks into bed with Makoto when he returns is enough to show Makoto the toll it takes on Haru. He could always use his Sight, he supposes, but loyalty to his best and only friend holds him back.

Makoto doesn't ask whose blood is smeared on Haru's skin, and he's learned to tell the sharp metallic tang of freshly-spilled blood from the dull scent of days-old injuries. He doesn't question the little things Haru brings him—a knotted wood staff that's just a little bit taller than him, the warm cloak that he hardly ever takes off. These he accepts with a grateful smile. He doesn't dwell on how the rough fabric of the hooded cloak smells faintly of fire or how the length of the staff is marked with deep, clean gouges; they're Haru's gifts for him, and he supposes it shouldn't matter where they came from.

He trusts Haru to talk to him when he's ready, just as Haru had remained quiet and steadfast until Makoto could muster up the courage to revisit the nightmare of that year on the run with Mama. Until then, Makoto will wait and welcome Haru home with a smile.

The creak of the door hinges snap him out of his reverie. His first thought is that Haru has returned, but then he remembers that Haru never lets the door creak like that; the few times that Makoto is awake to hear Haru come back, he only hears the faint scratching of the door on the dusty ground as it is eased open and soft muffled footsteps carefully picking their way across the room.

_Haru would never be that careless_.

He reaches for his walking stick, rising panic thick in his throat. His fingers close on the knotted top of the stick, but his fumbling awkwardness makes him drop it with a clatter. Makoto still isn't used to his rapidly growing body, and his frantic trembling isn't helping at all. He wishes he hadn't taken his cloak off even if the desert summer is particularly stifling at night.

Makoto tries to clear his mind enough to attempt to See, but he is too distracted by the blood pounding in his ears. Still, he grits his teeth and keeps trying.

Eventually, either through brute mental force or sheer dumb luck, the darkness slowly melts away. He senses the shape of his fists clenched around crumpled sheets. His field of vision widens, but it happens too slowly, too sluggishly for him to avoid the hand that quickly clamps around his mouth.

Makoto belatedly realises that he should have called for help earlier when he still had the chance. His captor pins him to the bed with his weight. His Sight slowly spreads until he could make out a jawline still soft with youth and a row of sharp, sharp teeth set between chapped lips.

"Sorry about this." A rough whisper in between harsh gasps ruffles the fringe of his hair.

The last thing Makoto Sees before a blow to his temple recalls the darkness is a pair of blood-red eyes.

* * *

The next time Makoto awakes, his mouth is dry and gritty with sand and his limbs are cramped from having been bound for who knows how long. This time, his Sight is more cooperative, and it takes him only a couple of minutes to See the situation he has somehow gotten into.

He is propped against a rock wall in what seems to be an underground cave of some sort. From his position, he can't See any exits or entrances, but he can hear the wind whistling outside so he can't be far from the surface. Still, the cave is small enough to make him feel like he's suffocating, so he takes deep breaths to try and calm himself.

"You hungry?"

Makoto jumps at the sound of another voice. He turns his Sight towards its source and squeaks when he makes out a boy around his age crouching beside an almost extinguished fire. The red-haired boy is gnawing at an unidentifiable animal bone with pointed teeth, and it reminds Makoto of the tales he had heard of people in the far south born with sharp fangs and flaming red hair and the strength of a hundred men. Makoto tells himself that there is no way that this boy sitting a few feet away from him is something straight out of those legends.

The boy snaps the bone in half as if it was a twig and looks questioningly at Makoto. Makoto had always been a stark believer in what his Sight reveals; so far, it has only shown him truth, and that in itself is both a blessing and a curse. So when the edge of a long canine tooth catches the light of the sputtering firelight, it doesn't take too much faith to accept that yes, the tales had been true all along.

_They say they can tear a man apart with their bare hands and they can smell fear from a mile away._

Makoto knows that it isn't helping, but he can't stop the flurry of thoughts reliving those moments in his childhood huddled with Rei and the other children their age as one of the older boys tried to frighten them with stories of monsters and blood. They had scared him then, but Mama had held him and told him they weren't real.

Now Mama is gone, and the stories are terrifyingly real.

_They're man-eaters, you know, and they especially like eating people while they're still alive. Keeps the meat from going tough, it seems._

Makoto's fingers instinctively seek the comfort of his walking stick, but his hands are tied behind his back and he can't See it anywhere in his vicinity. It is the loss of that one little piece of Haru that he carries with him that breaks his resolve to stay calm and brings frightened tears to his eyes.

The boy—_monster_, Makoto's mind whispers even as he desperately tries to hold on to the hope of being proven wrong about his apprehension—stalks towards him, the broken shard of bone held loosely in his hand. Makoto isn't sure how to read the expression on his captor's face, but he imagines appealing to whatever little mercy he can is his only chance of surviving for just a little longer.

"Please don't kill me." His voice cracks. He doesn't want to die here, not without having said a proper farewell to Haru. He had gotten complacent, had assumed that Haru would always be with him, and now he will regret that he didn't even see Haru off when he left.

_I have to live. For Haru._

He should have learned his lesson, really, from his parents' death, but he supposes learning to live and have no regrets is a nigh impossible task. His lower lip trembles with fear, tears falling freely down his face. He doesn't try to hold back his emotions because it would be a lost cause anyway if he did, and maybe crying might make the boy pity him enough to at least not make him suffer for long.

"Relax, if I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead by now."

The redhead crouches down until he is at eye-level with Makoto. His red eyes are surprisingly clear of malice, a hint of curiosity the only thing Makoto can detect in his gaze.

"I was told you were blind, but that's obviously a lie, right?" The boy passes a dirt-encrusted hand in front of his Sight-filled eyes. Makoto flinches instinctively, then curses himself for revealing his Sight so easily. Three years with only Haru to keep him company has made him forget how to keep secrets.

But he hasn't forgotten how to keep his mouth shut, so he does just that. He readies himself for the boy's retaliation at his silence, but all that comes is a careless shrug and another repeated question of whether or not he was hungry.

Makoto debates the risk of accepting food from someone who had kidnapped him a few hours ago against the rumbling of his stomach. In the end, he decides he needs food to keep his energy up in case an opportunity for escape presents itself. He's not all that hungry yet—dinner hadn't been too long ago, it seems—but his captor might not be as punctual with meals as Makoto is used to.

He knows that he is being unreasonably optimistic about his prospects, but it is good to be able to focus on something other than the bleakness of his current situation. Maybe if he tells himself enough times that he can get out of this situation, he'll eventually believe it.

He nods silently. He expects the boy to cut his bonds so he can eat, but he just gets up and walks back over to the dying fire and pulls the last of the skewered meat from it.

When the thick slab of meat is unceremoniously shoved into his mouth, he gags and chokes until his captor realises his predicament and withdraws the food until it becomes more manageable to chew. It's awkward, eating without the use of hands, but Makoto doesn't want to push his luck by asking to have the knots around his wrists undone.

It takes a long time to finish his scant meal, and the way the redhead eyes him—calculating and predatory—as he sits back on his haunches and holds the meat to Makoto's lips is disconcerting to say the least.

"Thank you," he mumbles after he swallows the last bite of tough, overcooked meat. The boy grunts in response and moves away from Makoto to stoke the fire.

The insistent throbbing in his temple reminds him that he can't keep his Sight active for too long. Already, he's been using it for close to an hour which is the longest he's ever had to maintain it. But Makoto, despite his captor's disinterest in ending his life, is reluctant to leave himself even more vulnerable than he already is.

In the end though, he is physically unable to keep his Sight from slipping away, and when the redhead next addresses him, it is obvious that he is blind once again. Most people would have been more inquisitive, would have pried more into his unusualness because humans are a naturally curious species. But the redhead seems to take Makoto's shifting from being able to see to being blind in stride; perhaps he—if he did come from the fabled south with its enormous animals and wide swaths of untouched greenery—has seen things a lot more otherworldly than a boy whose sight comes and goes erratically.

"You're a weird one, huh?" his captor's gruff voice calls out as he pokes the smouldering embers with a stick. "But that's probably why those men want you," he mutters to himself.

"Those men?" Makoto can't help but ask.

"The ones who sent me to get you." The red-haired boy seems more talkative now; perhaps Makoto's blindness has made him lower his guard.

If there is ever a perfect time to try and get information, it's now.

"Do you work for them? How did they know about me? Where are you taking me?"

A tense silence follows the barrage of questions that escape his mouth. Makoto wishes for his Sight back so he can See his captor's face and gauge his mood, but his mind is too exhausted to summon it. Still, he has come too far to stop now even when logic told him to be more cautious, to not to push too hard, too fast.

"Please—"

"Shut up!"

Makoto winces at the vehemence in his voice. He is aware that he must have crossed a line somewhere in his probing for answers. He isn't really adept at subtlety—that is more Haru's area of expertise—so it doesn't come as a surprise that his poorly-executed attempts at gleaning information are unfruitful.

What does surprise him is when a callused hand grabs his chin and jerks it forward. Makoto hadn't even heard him move; it is as if he had leaped directly from his perch by the fire to where Makoto is sitting; such a feat is surely impossible for humans. It hammers home the fact that his captor is no ordinary human.

_As if the teeth hadn't been enough of a giveaway_. The sarcastic voice in his head sounds oddly like Haru, and it's a tiny comfort that slows Makoto's pulse to a much more manageable albeit still much faster than normal pace.

"Listen," the boy rasps, his breath fanning hotly across Makoto's upturned face. He feels him grab his tunic and haul him up high enough that the tips of his toes are just barely brushing the hard ground. "I _don't_ work for them and don't you ever say anything like that again!"

Makoto squeaks a tiny 'yes'. Quivering, with his heart in his throat, he drops back down onto the ground as the boy's laboured breathing echoes in the tiny cave. Makoto hears shuffling moving away from him and the whisper of a thump as the red-haired boy sits back down by the fire.

He bites his lip to keep himself quiet; so far, opening his mouth has only served to anger the boy so it would be prudent to lie low until his captor is feeling a bit more gracious.

"Get some sleep. We're leaving at dawn."

* * *

The next day, as the boy prepares for their departure, Makoto realises that he had neither Seen nor heard any horse or even a camel near the cave that they had been staying in. He wonders if he'll be forced to walk to wherever they're going.

A heavy weight settles on his head, thick cloth brushing his forehead as what feels like a makeshift keffiyeh slips over his eyes. He doesn't bother adjusting it; he's still too tired to attempt using his Sight, and he doesn't need his physical eyes to See anyway.

His misgivings about going on foot are silenced when he feels thin but muscular arms lift him as easily as if he is as light as a feather—which Makoto knows is nowhere near the truth, judging from the way Haru wheezes when Makoto ends up accidentally crushing him when they sleep beside each other.

Although it's embarrassing to be treated like a child—_he's almost twelve years of age!_—and Makoto knows this arrangement is just so they can move faster, he's grateful for having been spared from stumbling around without his Sight or his walking stick. It's a small kindness, but a kindness nonetheless, and Makoto has a niggling feeling that he should take whatever he can because moments like these—almost peaceful if not for the undercurrent of tension simmering just below the surface—would be few and far between.

_At least I won't have to worry about tripping and injuring myself._

* * *

They travel for what seems like hours over the rolling sands. When a passing caravan comes within hearing range, the boy warns Makoto not to make a sound. It trundles past them without incident, and regret pokes at Makoto for being too cowardly to take his chances. The next time, it is a lone travelling merchant who tips his head at them in greeting.

The thought that his captor's stating his lack of intention to kill Makoto meant nothing to anyone else who gets caught up in the mess of Makoto's kidnapping, coupled with the tight, bruising grip on his body, freezes the plea for help on the tip of Makoto's tongue. He swallows the bitter lump of frustration and feels it settle heavily into his bones.

* * *

The harsh desert sun beats down on Makoto's cloth-covered head as the gentle rocking pace of the redhead's strides lulls him to sleep. He doesn't feel as safe as he does when he's with Haru, and that's to be expected considering he is in the company of someone who had taken him against his will, but his fingertips don't tingle with danger the way they do when instinct warns him something bad is about to happen.

Now that he's thought about it, the tingles didn't come that night when he was stolen away either. He's always believed that it is somehow related to his Sight, that inexplicable feeling when there is danger brewing near him, but perhaps those incidents may have been coincidences that he somehow associated with being able to tell the future. Because there is absolutely no possibility that he is in no danger right now, considering he is being all but led to people who may be even more cruel than Leader.

Makoto inwardly scoffs at the idea of premonition; his Sight may show him a lot, but it's limited to things that have happened or had happened, and even then he can only see a few years into the past if he really tries, and the attempts always leave him so drained that he all but passes out from the effort.

_Though it would be nice if I could see the future_.

Then maybe he could see if he'd live long enough to meet Haru again.

* * *

A/N: 2nd chapter is here, even if it's a bit shorter than chapter 1 because I didn't want to shift POV's from Makoto to Haru too often . Also, writing from the POV of a blind person is difficult, but then I kinda should have expected that anyway..

To all those who reviewed the first chapter, thank you so much and I hope you enjoy the 2nd installment of Sight~


	3. (3) Haru

A/N: First of all, thank you guys for the reviews; reading them really inspires me to keep writing XD And second, this chapter took a bit longer to write than expected but it's a bit longer too so yeah...

Also, new summary, yay! It's a quote from Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth though so not mine at all.

Anyway, enough about me. On to the story!

* * *

Haru curls his fingers tighter on the sheaf of papers that had taken him the better part of three days to obtain. It would have been easier if he had had the guts to just kill that guard who, by mere coincidence, had foiled his first attempt, but Haru, despite Leader's mocking grunts of _coward_, has never used his dagger to take a life. Whenever he comes close, he remembers Makoto's wavering voice as he spoke of his father's demise and he just can't bring himself to snuff out someone's existence like that.

Of course, that doesn't mean he's never used his blade, because he can no longer even count the number of times he's had to wipe someone else's blood off the metal so it won't rust. But he limits himself to attacks meant to disable, intentionally missing the vital organs by less than an inch. Haru supposes he's glad that Leader's training has given him the accuracy to do that.

He clicks his tongue at Iwatobi, who tosses his head and stares balefully at him with beady camel eyes. Haru digs his heels lightly into Iwatobi's side, silently urging him on. Home is only a few hours away, but an inexplicable uneasiness hangs over him like a shroud.

Makoto's face comes unbidden to the front of his mind.

Haru shakes his head, the cloth covering the lower half of his face coming undone. There is no safer place for Makoto than the heart of Leader's operations; Leader would never allow anyone near his precious Seer.

Still, he is unable to shake the worry furrowing his brow. Haru hitches his makeshift cloth mask back into place and gives a half-hearted kick against the camel's sides.

Iwatobi snorts in response, but his pace speeds up a little for a few minutes before dropping back down to the almost leisurely trot he prefers. Haru lets out a resigned sigh.

_Looks like it will take me a few more hours to get back._

* * *

Haru lets out a rare smile, his thoughts on seeing Makoto again after having been away for so long. His tired muscles scream in protest, but he drags himself past the guards stationed at the outpost gates with nary a glance at the armed men.

In the pack slung across his back, there is a squashed, orange-red fruit that Haru had filched from a vendor in the last town he had passed through. He feels bad for the theft, but he has no gold coins of his own and the desire to bring Makoto a little something for them to share had outweighed his guilt.

He takes it out and holds it loosely in his fist, its fuzzy skin tickling his callused fingers. He hopes Makoto will like it.

"—been gone for half a day already. Leader is pissed." The dregs of a hushed conversation makes Haru turn his head to fix the speakers with an inquisitive look. The quick lowering of their gaze is nothing new, but Haru sees a spark of pity in one of them that starts his mind racing with paranoia.

As he trudges further into the inner parts of the outpost, the persistent buzz of anxiety in his ears slowly builds to a deafening roar that drowns out the whispers among the slaves scuttling around the corridors with their heads bowed low. Normally, hardly anyone takes notice of him past a cursory glance and maybe a poorly-disguised scowl of disgust, but now everyone seems to be watching him with bated breath.

_Something's wrong._

His steps quicken to an almost run, the way to Makoto's room as familiar to him as the back of his hand. Haru abandons his usual practice of moving as silently as possible, instead sacrificing stealth for speed.

He throws the door open, the wood splintering as it hit the wall. He only briefly registers the dark, crusty blood splashed across the wood.

_No._

He takes a step forward, frantic eyes searching for any sign of Makoto. The bed isn't made, the sheets are half-hanging off the floor. Haru's head whips around, still hoping—expecting—to catch a glimpse of tousled, brown hair under the pile of pillows haphazardly strewn on the far left corner of the room where he and Makoto usually spend most of their free hours together.

But the room is empty, and Haru feels cold despite the stifling desert heat. He spots Makoto's walking stick peeking out from under the bed. He drops his pack to the floor with a dull thud, his limbs shuffling awkwardly forward.

He grabs the wooden stick tightly, his mind incapable of processing anything other than a repeated prayer of _no, no, please, Makoto, this isn't happening, no, no__—_

"Makoto," Haru hears a broken sob, then realises it's his.

Haru sits by Makoto's empty bed just long enough for the initial panic and despair to dull into resentment and anger. Anger at Leader because this is his doing somehow, he just knows it, but also anger at himself for not getting home fast enough.

Already, everything has turned dark, even the mural that he had made for Makoto on a whim—a picture of an oasis that Haru had sworn to take Makoto to one day, at which Makoto had smiled and said he likes to using his Sight to look at it whenever Haru is not there with him.

_Makoto._

Haru had always been a thistle in the wind; he has found that resisting fate is just an invitation for pain and disappointment, so he is quick to accept whatever losses he experiences. But Makoto is too important, too much a part of him, that Haru can't just shrug his disappearance off as something unavoidable.

_I just have to find him again._

It doesn't matter that he has no inkling at all of where Makoto had been taken, or that Leader might not even let Haru go after him. Haru knows, without a shadow of doubt or hesitation, that he will travel to the four ends of the world if it means seeing Makoto again.

* * *

"Do you think I'm that stupid?" Leader's deceptively calm voice cuts across the room. Normal Haru would have flinched, but his newfound determination to get Makoto back leaves no room for anything else, much less fear.

He meets Leader's icy blue gaze head-on, silently refusing to back down. The room, empty save for the two of them, is still and quiet.

"I've already sent my best men after that boy. You are _not_ going anywhere." Leader's tone is final, and Haru can tell that he expects the conversation—if it can even be called that—to end with that.

Leader leans back into his chair, his bulging arms draped across its arms carelessly. He yawns a large, gaping yawn, a gold tooth glinting merrily from within rows of yellowed teeth.

_He doesn't even care enough to know his name._

"His name is Makoto," Haru's voice trembles with barely-restrained anger. "And I don't care what you say. I'm going after him."

Leader's eyes narrow, and Haru feels the cold familiar tendrils of fear trying to pierce through the fragile calm he had wrought from focusing on finding Makoto. He tamps it down, forcing himself to stand strong. For too long he had let his fear of Leader rule him, had let it keep both him and Makoto shackled to this cruel brute of a man.

That fear had kept him alive, but giving in now would mean losing Makoto forever because even if Leader's men do manage to get him back—which Haru doubts because aside from him, Leader doesn't have any other tracker competent enough to follow a trail more than a few hours old—Makoto would no doubt be locked away from everyone, even Haru.

He'd never see Makoto again. And if he had to choose between the certainty of life without Makoto and the very real possibility of death if he pursued his blind friend, well, there's really no contest at all.

_If it's for Makoto's sake, I'll do anything._

Haru manages to avoid the fist Leader throws at him, but not the sweeping kick that brings him toppling down to the hard ground in a breathless heap.

"Disregarding my orders, are you?" Leader hisses, aiming another ruthless kick at the side of Haru's ribcage. But Haru hasn't been training for the last twelve or so years for nothing, and it shows when he grabs Leader's sandaled foot and pushes it away.

Leader stumbles backward more out of surprise than anything, but it gives Haru the opening he needs to struggle to his feet. His fingers close tightly around the hilt of his dagger, every fibre of his being calling for Leader's blood to dye the sandy floor red.

Haru rushes at Leader with a cry, fist clutching his blade in a forward grip. He slashes at Leader's exposed torso, aiming both to cut and to prevent Leader from drawing the scimitar hanging at his side. An unarmed Leader is no easy opponent, true, but it is one he has a sliver of a chance of winning against. Leader with his notorious scimitar, however, is a whole different monster.

So Haru presses his advantage, his attacks a flurry of motion fast enough that Leader has no choice but to focus on evading. His thoughts are clinical, almost unemotional, telling him to slash right, feint left, flip to a reverse grip and thrust the blade hilt-deep into Leader's gut.

But Leader, despite his size, is nimble enough to avoid most of Haru's attacks. A smirk forms on his face as he jumps back from the tip of Haru's dagger, but Haru is too focused on taking him down that he misses the quick flicker of Leader's eyes over his right shoulder.

A sharp blow to the back of his head dazes him, and a pair of muscled arms grip him and force him to his knees before Leader. His dagger clatters onto the ground.

"What took you idiots so long?" Leader barks out, swiping his thumb across a shallow cut on his arm.

"Sorry, boss," the man restraining Haru says. Haru struggles against the grip on his arms to no avail. The other man slouches beside Haru, his hand loosely wrapped around the handle of a wooden club, no doubt ready in case Haru somehow managed to break free of the iron grip on his arms.

Tears of frustration gather at the corners of Haru's eyes.

_Why am I so weak?_

He had fought without reserve, had put all his strength behind every attack, and it turns out Leader had just been toying with him. What use were all those hours he had spent honing his body if he can't even—

"You know, you're actually not too bad." Leader leans down, roughly grabs Haru's hair and pulls hard, forcing him to look up into his smugly grinning face. His breath reeks of alcohol as it wafts across his face. "It's just a shame that you don't have it."

Leader takes Haru's fallen blade and runs the tip down Haru's smudged cheek to the side of his neck. "You don't have that instinct, that drive to kill or be killed," he continues. The blade presses against his pulsepoint, and Haru feels a drop of blood well up and trickle down his throat.

Haru gulps his fear down, refusing to give Leader the satisfaction of seeing him afraid. He thinks of Makoto, of the way he whispers a soft '_goodnight' _into Haru's ear whenever they sleep together, of once-small hands that had now almost grown bigger than Haru's but had remained unchanged in the caring way they soothe Haru's pains away. He thinks of Makoto, and it gives him the strength to stare back at Leader with a steely, unflinching gaze.

Leader's mouth twists into a cruel snarl. "Those eyes," he hisses. Haru's head snaps to the side as Leader backhands him across the cheek. "You're just like your mother, too fucking stubborn for your own good."

Haru spits out the blood pooling in his mouth, its metallic taste thick on his tongue. "Is that why you had her killed?" he bites out, his tone betraying the years of resentment he'd spent cursing Leader from depriving him of the chance to even meet his mother. These words had been festering inside for so long that once Haru releases them, they come gushing out in a venomous torrent.

"Is that why," he repeats, rebellion shining clear and steady in his eyes. "Father?"

Haru glares at the man before him, hating the way Haru can see a little bit of himself reflected back at him. He had inherited those cold blue eyes and the stern set of that mouth. The identity of his father had been the outpost's worst-kept secret; the slaves whispered it among themselves when they dared, whispered about the noblewoman Leader had taken a fancy to and subsequently kidnapped and forced to be his wife. Haru had denied it at first, but Cook let it slip one night that she had helped his mother give birth to him. Cook wouldn't lie, not about that, and looking closely at Leader is enough evidence of his parentage.

Still, he never speaks of it, especially not to Makoto.

Leader drops his hold on Haru's hair, but Haru is not naive enough to believe that his ordeal is over. The jarring punch that snaps his head back, followed by a painful jab of his own dagger's hilt to his abdomen, proves him right.

"Take him to the dungeon," Leader addresses the other two men in the room. "Set a guard on him, and make sure he doesn't go anywhere."

As the men drag him to his feet and out of the room, Leader calls out one last time.

"Haruka," Leader says with no little amount of disgust. "You want to know why I killed your mother?"

Haru's silence speaks volumes. Leader turns away and, with a quick flick of his wrist, buries Haru's dagger half-way into the wall.

"Because she tried to leave."

* * *

The cell he is in is small and reeks of human waste and decay. The manacles on his wrists and ankles are a familiar weight—he _did _spend his childhood with chains on his legs until Leader deemed him too broken to attempt to escape. The metal is thick and sturdy, so breaking it by brute force is out of the question.

But Haru is resourceful, and he had learned that even the best-laid plans can go awry somehow so it's best to always to have a contingency plan. The men had done a cursory check on his person for concealed weapons, but they had only been looking for the obvious.

They hadn't checked his shoes.

Haru stays still, listening for the tell-tale snoring of the guard stationed outside his cell door. He had seen that man around before, and he knows that he has a well-deserved reputation of always sleeping on the job. The only reason Leader hasn't had him killed yet is because he is also a notoriously light sleeper who awakens at the slightest noise.

Haru supposes he's glad that his small body often makes people underestimate him; the men tasked with imprisoning him had likely assumed that chaining him would be enough and so hadn't set a proper guard to watch him.

Once he's sure that the guard is asleep and no one would be coming to check on him, he slowly drags his right foot towards himself. The chains on his arms keep them elevated beside his head, but the ones on his legs are longer, long enough that he could raise his leg enough to reach his foot.

Fighting against the stiffness that had settled in his limbs from hours of sitting in one position, Haru carefully raises his foot and tries to reach for his sandal. On his first attempt, his fingers just barely brush the leather straps fastening it to his foot. A couple more attempts yield no success.

_This isn't working._

Haru decides to try another tactic; he takes a deep breath, and pulls himself up slightly using his chained wrists for leverage. The metal bites into his chafed skin, scraping it raw, but the tiny lift the maneuver provides is enough for Haru to slide his sandal off.

He wiggles his toes, the lockpick nestled between his big toe and the one beside it. He has lockpicks hidden all over his body in preparation for a situation just like this, but he isn't sure if he has enough dexterity in his toes to actually pick the locks with them.

Haru wonders if he could try to get the pick to his mouth instead, because he's tried picking a lock that way before and had a little success. Five out of eight attempts, in fact.

He decides to repeat his lifting maneuver, but this time moving higher. His leg hurts from the strain as he forces his foot nearer to his mouth, but he ignores it and focuses solely on the pick between his toes. A few agonizing seconds later, he has the pick caught between his teeth.

Haru's contorted body sags with temporary relief; he almost laughs at the irony that it is Leader's training—days of grueling physical test that he never thought he'd feel grateful for—that is instrumental to his escape.

He works the pick into the lock on his right hand. Once he frees his dominant hand, unlocking the rest of the manacles should be easy. Haru jiggles the thin metal as much as he dares, and the scraping of metal on metal echoes so loudly in the cell room that he fears the guard might wake up.

But he continues anyway, and it seems Lady Luck is smiling upon him tonight because he manages to open the lock fairly easily. He goes to work on his other limbs, but once he had all but his left leg unchained, he hears a noise that makes his heart leap to his throat.

The guard's snoring is interrupted by a quick, hitching gasp, the kind that is usually followed by the sleeper jerking awake. For a long second, Haru listens intently, willing the guard to go back to sleep. The ruffle of fabric and the shuffling of feet indicates otherwise; his luck has run out.

Haru quickly debates whether he should continue his task and risk the guard catching him before he's freed himself or snap the manacles back in place and just try again later. He decides to gamble on the fact that the fastest he's ever picked a lock in his life had been two seconds.

It pays off; when the door creaks open and the guard sleepily calls out his name, Haru is waiting behind it. He has no weapon with which to disable the guard so he opts for slamming the thick wood into the guard's surprised face.

Haru catches the guard's limp body before it falls to the ground; he'd made enough noise with the door and the alarm may have already been raised for all he knew, but he decides to err on the side of caution.

He drags the guard towards the manacles and locks them around the unconscious man's limbs. This should give him more time to put distance between himself and the outpost before Leader's men come after him.

* * *

The corridors are mostly empty, with only the occasional slave running some errand like fetching candles or water. Haru evades them easily enough by hiding in the shadows of alcoves and corners until they've gone past.

The trouble comes when he reaches the outer gate; the guards are engaged in a lively game of cards, and although their noise would mask whatever sounds Haru might make, their rowdiness means people are more likely to take notice if they suddenly quiet down, which means a direct approach like knocking them out is impossibly risky and stupid.

Haru crouches behind a low wall, casting about for anything that might serve as a distraction and perhaps draw the guards away from their post so he could slip past them. The minutes tick by, and Haru had almost lost hope when a wagon, pulled by two sleepy-looking camels, trundles up to the gate.

He recalls that the water delivery had been due to arrive the day before; they must be leaving right now. The wagon stops before the gate, the guards calling the driver to alight. This may be his best and only chance.

Haru, keeping close to the ground, moves quickly from shadow to shadow until he's but an arm's length from the back of the caravan. He keeps one eye trained on the guards conversing with the driver, and when he sees one begin to turn, he ducks under the flaps of the caravan, hoping against all hope it's empty.

His hopes are dashed when he finds a woman with warm hazel eyes and wavy brown hair held back by a thin golden marriage band staring at him with her mouth parted in shock. Haru readies himself for a shriek to alert the guards, but the woman surprises him with what she does next.

"Do you need help?" she whispers urgently, moving forward to get a better look at him. He watches her take in his bruised and grimy body and his blood-encrusted face with a frown.

"Yes," Haru answers. If the woman is offering her aid, then Haru would be an idiot to refuse. Something about the woman's honest face makes Haru immediately trust her despite his better judgement.

"All right. Hide here." The woman ushers him into a chest half-filled with colorful fabric. "And be very quiet."

The lid of the chest closes over Haru with a final click, and it dawns on Haru that he has effectively placed himself at the mercy of someone he had only just met. But he'd had no choice, really, so instead of berating himself, he focuses on listening for sounds outside that might help him gauge the severity of the situation a little better.

"What's in here?"

"Oh, just some useless things, really. Nothing special." The flippant tone of the driver belies the tension Haru can hear in his voice. He probably hopes to avoid drawing their attention to his young wife, knowing how common it is for brigands like the ones in Leader's employ to take whatever they want, be it money, possessions, women.

The guards seem to be in good humor, so they don't really linger for long. But Haru still holds his breath, waiting in case the woman betrays his position. Heavy footsteps move around the caravan's interior, circling aimlessly.

"Come on. Nothing here," a male voice calls out. "Oh wait, what do we have here?"

A feminine squeal almost makes Haru jump out of his hiding place. He reminds himself that revealing himself would do more harm than good; in Leader's mind, harboring fugitives—which he certainly would be in a few hours once someone discovers him gone from his cell—is a crime worthy of slow torture. However, that thought doesn't make it easier to sit still while the woman who had helped him is in trouble.

"Pretty little thing, aren't you?" someone leers.

"Stop, get your hands off me!" the woman gasps. The ensuing struggle lasts only a couple of seconds, but the men's jeering and the woman's increasingly agitated protests makes Haru clench his fists against the urge to stop the men from what they are doing.

"Please, let her go!" The driver abandons all pretense of nonchalance. "She's—She's sick with the coughing fever!"

Haru can tell that's a lie; he's seen victims of the coughing fever and the woman had shown no signs of it. The driver must be desperate to keep his wife out of the men's grasp—and rightly so, Haru thinks—that he would tell so blatant a lie.

Fortunately, the men aren't too bright and the mere mention of the dreaded disease coupled with the woman's exaggerated coughing fit, sends them scurrying away from the caravan as fast as they can, arguing between themselves about whether touching someone sick would make one sick as well or not.

"Are you all right, Miho?"

"Y-yes, I think so," the woman—_Miho__—_replies.

"I'm sorry, I should have stopped them earlier, I—"

"Goro, it's fine. It turned out all right in the end, right? Besides," the woman's voice softens. "Someone once said 'All's well that ends well'. Appropriate, don't you think?"

"Miho..."

"I'm fine. Really."

"Well, if you're sure," the man called Goro sighs. "I'll get the camels going and we can leave this place, all right?"

Miho's soft hum of agreement is lost in the clattering of the wagon wheels on the rocky ground.

"You can come out now. It's safe."

Haru slowly eases the lid of the chest upward, hardly able to believe that he's now on a caravan heading away from the place he had grown up in, the place where he'd known so much grief and pain alleviated only by brief moments with Makoto.

"Why did you help me?" Haru asks cautiously.

"Well, you looked like you needed it," the woman smiles. "Adults are supposed to protect children; that's the way the world should go."

Such optimism from someone who only moments ago had been at the mercy of rough, violent hands is almost unbelievable if not for the fact that Haru has seen people hold firm to their beliefs even in the face of extreme adversity. Haru envies her a bit because he has grown much too cynical about people to see the world with such rose-colored lenses.

"You can stay with us for as long as you need, so in the meantime make yourself comfortable, eh?"

Miho gently steers him to the back of the caravan where a heap of soft-looking blankets lies on the floor. When Haru stares up at her with a question in his eyes, Miho brushes it away with a tinkling laugh and carefully tucks him into the blankets.

"Sleep for a bit. You look like you need it."

"Are you going to tell your husband about me?" Haru asks apprehensively. Although Miho seems nice enough, he's not sure if her husband would take kindly to the fact that having someone like him with them would invite the wrong sort of attention.

"Goro? Don't you worry about him," Miho winks. "I'll take care of it."

Haru watches her retreating back as she climbs to the front of the caravan to presumably stay with her husband. He pulls up the blanket covering him to his chin, gazing at the swaying hangings on the roof.

He doesn't fully trust Miho yet, at least not enough that he would reveal everything to her, but it seems safe enough to rest for a bit. Besides, she had every chance to turn him in to those guards, and she didn't. Of course, she could be planning to sell him into slavery, but she doesn't seem like the kind of person who would do that. Haru's judgement of people is rarely wrong, but one can never be too careful so he grabs the nearest object he can get his hands on—a large wooden mug darkened with age—and holds it close. He rests a little bit easier knowing he had a weapon—albeit a very crude one—within reach.

Now that the adrenaline rush of his escape has wound down, he feels the fatigue of that last mission, that altercation with Leader, and those hours in the dungeon hit him all at once.

_Just a little nap then._

* * *

A/N: Pace is a bit slow in the MakoHaru department but I needed to set things up properly or I wouldn't forgive myself if I ended up butchering the plot because I'm too impatient , a bit of a warning I guess that I might be including a little one-sided RinMako in the future chapters.


	4. (4) Rin

A/N: This chapter's a bit more violent and a bit more mature (I think) than the previous one but nothing too explicit. I'd rate it a hard T but if anyone thinks I should bump it up to M, just shoot me a pm :)

Also trying out if titling the chapter after the character it focuses on would be good. Feedback (yay or nay?) would be super welcome.

* * *

_I against my brothers, my brothers and I against my cousins, then my cousins and I against strangers._

Every member of the Faris people, from the oldest Sheikh to the youngest child, abides by this hierarchy of familal loyalty. It is what helped them survive for as long as they have, sequestered away into the southern oases past the huge mountain range seperating them from the rest of Hanifa. Every family takes care of their own first and foremost, and Rin had believed that that would be enough to keep them safe.

But this widespread belief among the Faris breeds mistrust towards outsiders, and this ultimately had become their downfall. The isolated Faris grew ignorant of the outside world and its ever-growing arsenal of weapons, content in living as they always had—men and women alike honing their bodies through hunting and riding, children tending to horses that grew almost as wild and untamed as their masters. It is hubris of the elders, Rin thinks, and too much trust in their own admittedly great physical strength, that spurred them to ignore the signs, to say that the young ones that disappear in the night had merely fallen prey to wild animals or had gotten lost in the valley cutting through the mountain range.

_Unfortunate accidents_, they had said, _but accidents all the same_. Even as more children disappeared, all the adults had done was keep a slightly tighter leash on them. None questioned why no trace of them have ever found, or why the ones that disappeared are children deemed to be weak, those that had difficulties keeping up with the frantic pace of everyday Faris life.

This quiet acceptance of the loss of children stems from yet another Faris saying that immediately follows the one about loyalty to one's family.

_The weak die out, and only the strong will survive._

* * *

Rin had always been one of the strongest Faris among others his age, so he supposes that's why he never really listens to the whispers of men stealing unsuitable children and fading away into the night. He scoffs at them, and turns up his nose whenever he heard it mentioned.

But then Gou starts trailing after him, her stubby little legs working furiously to keep up with him. Gou is smaller than most Farisa, but Rin convinces himself she's just a late bloomer, because after all, she's still their father's daughter, and their father is the strongest man among the Faris.

By the time she's ten, the adults start looking at their parents with pity whenever the topic of children comes up. _At least there's Rin_, they murmur, and Rin begins to despise them for it. Who are they to look down on Gou anyway? Why does everyone think physical strength is the most important trait in the world?

He'd never really questioned the Faris way of thinking before, but accepting that only the strong are worthy of survival would mean Gou, with her shining red eyes and her short, slender limbs, would be left behind. It doesn't make sense, Rin thinks, because he can't reconcile the two most prominent philosophies of the Faris when it comes to Gou. One dictates his brotherly duty to her, while the other all but states that she, due to her weakness, is to be discarded like a tattered horse blanket.

_As if I'd let that happen._

Rin takes it upon himself to make Gou stronger. But despite his best efforts—pushing her to run with him as they take the horses to their watering-hole, urging her to try swimming for fish in the river meandering along the foot of the smallest mountain—she remains the same as ever. Her muscles don't develop, not like Rin's or even Aki's, and she loses her breath far too easily.

For months, a shadow looms over Rin, and his heart starts beating rapidly in his chest whenever he can't see Gou. His father must have noticed, because he takes him aside one fine summer morning after they break their fast.

"Rin," he says, his large hand a comforting weight on Rin's head. "Do you like your sister?"

"Of course," Rin mumbles, his cheeks heating up. It's a weird question, in hindsight, but he had been too embarrassed at the time to look further into it. Besides, it's his father, and he feels like maybe the whispers of the other Faris is taking its toll him.

Whether it is an omen or absurdly bad luck, Rin isn't sure, but the bright morning sun darkens for a moment as a cloud passes over it. He thinks he imagines a similar shadow crossing his father's face, but the moment he looks closer, all traces of it, if it had ever been there at all, are gone.

Two weeks later, Rin wakes up and finds Gou's bed empty.

* * *

Everyone else mourns Gou, but Rin stands apart from them, his mind steadfastly rejecting the idea that she's gone. It can't have been wild animals, Rin argues to himself, because he would have heard or smelled them otherwise. It can't have been an accident either, because Gou would never be foolish enough to attempt anything without telling Rin first; Rin had personally made sure of that.

That leaves the theory of thieving men taking children away. But even that makes no sense, because it is impossible for ordinary non-Faris people to sneak into a Faris village without alerting any one of the guards patrolling the tents every night.

The night after the ashes of Gou's belongings are scattered to the four winds, Rin lies quietly in his bed and thinks. He thinks and thinks, but he can't come up with any explanation. He even considers the supernatural, but none of the folktales mention anything resembling this.

"Talk to him, please," his mother's voice sounds muffled through the thick fabric seperating him from where his parents sleep. "I'm worried about him."

"Rin is smart," his father replies. "I think we should leave him be for now."

"It's _because_ he's smart that I worry!" his mother's tone rises, and Rin flinches at its vehemence. "What if he starts poking around? What then?"

Rin listens with wide eyes as his father tries to comfort his mother.

"I don't want to lose another child!"

_What?_

* * *

His mother's panicked voice haunts him for days. He continues his duties in distracted silence, trying to look past the confusion clouding his mind. The way his parents had spoken had made it seem as if they knew what had happened to Gou, but if that's the case, then why hadn't they said anything when Rin asked them about it?

_What secrets are they keeping from me?_

He becomes taciturn during mealtimes, nodding once in a while to appease his increasingly worried mother. He stares into their faces, looking for answers. He finds that they can no longer hold his gaze for more than a few seconds, and Rin thinks it's guilt that makes his father avoid his eyes.

* * *

A chance encounter on the way to the watering-hole is what begins Rin's realisation of the true nature of the children's disappearances. Aki walks along with her head hanging low, two buckets full of oasis water swinging freely from her hands.

"Aki!" Rin calls out, remembering that she has a sister named Yuki who had disappeared a few months before Gou. He also recalls Aki telling everyone that would listen—which hadn't included a lot of people other than curious children looking for excitement—that she had seen a shadow take her sister from their bed.

Aki looks up at him with dead eyes.

"Rin..." she murmurs. They stare at each other, kindred spirits who have both lost someone important to them. Something snaps, and the buckets spill water on the ground as Aki throws herself into his arms.

Rin stiffens; displays like these are frowned upon in their community. _Tears are a sign of weakness_, everyone says. But here, away from everyone else, Rin finds the strength to cry, to let himself feel the full brunt of his grief over losing his precious little sister.

He eventually asks her about the circumstances of Yuki's disappearance, and although Aki is reluctant to share, he pieces together the bits she does let slip enough that his suspicions become startlingly real.

He doesn't share his realisations, not with Aki because knowing might be a burden too heavy for her to bear. He pats her awkwardly on the back as they part ways, an unspoken pact to never speak of this again passing between them.

* * *

The darkness becomes Rin's world; he sneaks out in the wee hours of the night and keeps an eye on the tents, paying close attention to those housing children near Gou's age when she disappeared. His nighttime wanderings yield little other than constant fatigue during the day that his father asks about with concern and a little fear. Fear for what, Rin isn't sure, but he can't help but think back on that conversation he had unwittingly eavesdropped on.

He plows on, determined to find answers. Rin knows this obsession of his is unhealthy, but if there is even the slightest chance that Gou is still alive somewhere, then all this would have been worth it if it means he could track her down.

One cold winter night, his patience finally bears fruit. A figure lurking in the shadows catches his eye, and his keen eyesight reveals a man with a little boy tucked under his arm. The boy's unusual silver hair glints in the moonlight; it's Ai, the half Faris whose mother had run off with an outsider and left her son with her sister.

Rin follows them without regard for his own safety; looking back on it, it had been a foolish move, not alerting anyone to his plans. But he had been reckless, eager to see if the man would lead him to Gou at last.

His eagerness costs him his vigilance, and when three men jump him from behind, he struggles but it's no use. They bind him before he can even fight back, and then they throw him into the back of a wagon filled with scared little Faris children a few years younger than him.

He rests his head against the grimy wooden floor and decides to sleep to regain his strength. He is a Faris, and these chains won't hold him for long.

* * *

In the end, it isn't manacles that restrict him but his own emotions. His actions indeed lead him to Gou, but he only succeeds in landing himself in the same sticky trap she had gotten caught up in.

She had been sold as a slave to a man who dreams of making an army of Faris to conquer the entirety of Hanifa. He had been disappointed in the slim pickings that had been brought to him, but the moment he sets his eyes on Rin, his greedy smirk widens.

"He's perfect!" the man squeals. Rin would have slammed a fist into that oily face if not for the fact that Gou is cowering behind the man, flanked by two Faris in their late teens.

The other captive children tell him about Soushi, a quiet Faris who lives alone in the outskirts of Rin's community, and how they've seen him pocket gold coins handed to him by the men who took them. Rin's mind flashes back to the recent influx of luxurious items in the tents of the parents who've lost children, and realises the lows to which the once-proud Faris have sunk.

He remembers the Sheikh's new wagon, and his father's face whenever Rin asks where all the food has come from, and disgust leaves him dry-heaving and sick to his stomach.

* * *

With Gou as leverage, Rin becomes their master's right-hand man, tasked to do his dirty work for him. Rin is no stranger to violence, having gone on a few hunts with his father, but nothing prepares him for the reality of his first human kill. He doesn't even remember why he had been ordered to kill that merchant, but the putrid smell of the intenstines torn wide open, the slickness of the blood dripping from his hands, and the taste of bile in his mouth become a staple of his nightmares.

Sometimes he dreams it's Gou lying in pieces in front of him, but most of the time, he sees himself in a spreading pool of blood, his limbs at horrifying angles and his eyes bulging out. If he doesn't manage to shake himself awake in time, the maggots appear and start devouring his flesh.

After only a few months in servitude, Rin can hardly recognize himself anymore, but he reminds himself of his duty to Gou and he somehow manages to keep a tiny bit of his humanity intact. He will never abandon her, not the way their parents had, because he is a true Faris, not like the weak-willed people who sell their children into slavery for a few gold coins.

_At least_, he thinks, _Gou is safe_. As long as Master keeps his word and keeps Gou out of the Faris breeding houses, Rin would gladly kill for him.

On the summer of the year he turns twelve, Master sends him out on a different mission. This time, he has to bring someone back to Master alive instead of simply presenting their heads to him.

They give him directions to a distant corner of the northern desert, and he is told that his target is a brown-haired blind boy his age hidden away in the innermost rooms of the outpost he would find once he reaches his destination.

Stealth is not his forte, but Rin is confident that he can fight his way out of any situation he would find himself in.

* * *

It takes him two days of hard traveling—on foot because Master thinks the exercise would make him even stronger and because good horses are scarce enough that only a handful of Master's men are allowed to ride them—with minimal breaks to reach the outpost. Once there, he does what he does best.

_Too easy_.

He leaves the remains of the guards where they have fallen; he can hardly be expected to clean up after himself when he has much more important things to do. He stalks his way along the corridors, listening intently for any breathing within the walls.

The first two occupied rooms are no good, their occupants aren't what he is looking for. He silences their screams with fingers thrust into their throat. The blood sprays high into the air, but Rin spares no thought for the dying gurgles or the wide, terrified eyes.

Third time's the charm, and it is in the third room that Rin finds his blind target. He tries to make as little noise as possible so as to avoid waking the boy; taking him would be a lot easier if he is asleep.

No suck luck though, because the moment he enters the room, the boy's eyes are already open.

_Might have to make this quick, then._

"Sorry about this," he mutters, and knocks him back to sleep.

Rin gathers the boy's prone form into his arms, then races through the rapidly wakening household. If he had been anything other than a Faris, he would have been worried about the blades and clubs aimed at him, but in his veins flows the blood of the fabled beastslayers of the south, and this calibre of weapons is no match for him.

His legs quickly carry him out of reach of any weapon, and when Rin hears someone calling for horsemen to pursue him, he laughs loud and clear because no one, not even a horse, can catch a Faris in full flight.

The humid air brushes past his cheeks as he leaps across the rolling sands, the boy's weight in his arms reminding him of days spent by the oasis playing with Gou beside the cool blue water. The feel of the gritty sand against his naked soles as he pushes off, the exhilaration of jumping so high he imagines he is touching the sky, whispers to him that this is what being a Faris is truly meant to be.

* * *

Once he's miles away from the outpost, he starts looking for a place to spend the rest of the night in. If he had been alone, he would have kept going all night, but traveling with someone he is holding against his will would be a bit more tiring than traveling by himself.

He finds a small cave that satisfies him, and sets up camp the way his father taught him. He sneaks glances at the boy he had bound and propped up against a cave wall, wondering what is it about him that made Master want to acquire him.

_Well, it's really none of my business._

He shrugs, but for some reason, his curiosity—which he had long believed had quieted down in the face of everything he had seen and done—is piqued.

Once the fire is going nice and hot, he sits back and studies the boy's features, his eyelids fluttering fitfully in his sleep, his lips twitching ever so slightly. His body is lean, with practically no defined muscle anywhere, but there's a quiet strength in him that Rin's never seen in anyone before. He has a strong jaw, Rin idly notes, and the makings of broad shoulders, traits that are considered attractive among the Faris. His brown hair is a novelty as well, or at least it is to Rin who had gotten used to the red hair of the Faris and Master's greasy blond head. He wonders if it would be as silky as a horse's mane or if it would be more like the texture of freshly-cut hay.

His treacherous eyes wander down the boy's wool-clad body, lingering over the hints of pale flesh peeking out from underneath his tunic then raking back up to his sleeping face, and he wonders if maybe he had eaten a bad batch of dried meat sometime before because he finds himself wanting to see what colour the boy's eyes are. He hadn't had a chance to look before, but he thinks it may be a dark shade of green or blue.

He stares at the boy until he starts to rouse. Rin hurriedly digs into the meat he had prepared, somehow embarrassed even if he knows that there is no chance of him getting caught ogling the other boy. The heat rushing to his cheeks is unfamiliar, and the slight tingling in his stomach even more so.

_Stupid_, he berates himself. _What are you getting so worked up for, Rin?_

It's not like the boy looks exceptionally beautiful; he's seen better-looking people in Master's room as they danced with fluttering cloths and jingling bangles. But none of them had ever elicited this kind of reaction from him, and Rin doesn't like that at all. He knows about sex and arousal—he's not an idiot, and at his age he's no stranger to erections—but he's never really thought that it would apply to him. Master had tried to use him as a stallion in the breeding houses, but his body never cooperated no matter how pretty the girl Master presents to him is.

Now, at the most inopportune time and with the most inappropriate person, his body decides to come alive. Rin fills his mind with thoughts of Master's grotesque rolls of fat, and that manages to take the edge off his arousal enough that he sounds relatively normal when he speaks.

"You hungry?

The boy's eyes snap up to him.

_Ah, they're green after all._

Rin watches the way the boy reacts to his voice; he'd taken care of a blind horse before, and this boy is not acting the way a blind creature would. His head is turned perfectly in his direction, which would have been impossible if he hadn't been able to see. He should only have been able to gauge his general direction, especially since he hadn't really spoken enough to let the boy get a better reading of his location.

He gets up and approaches the boy, willing his face to stop blushing so damn much. He succeeds, he thinks, but just a little. Rin grips the broken bone in his hand, its familiar texture like a tether that helps him withstand the onslaught of curiosity, desire, loneliness, and longing.

"Please don't kill me."

The raw fear in the boy's voice is like a bucketful of cold water poured over his head. Rin freezes dead in his tracks, and his mouth feels too full, too crowded with sharp, pointed teeth. One nicks his bottom lip, and the vengeful side of him that hates the world, the side that is becoming more and more dominant lately, whispers snidely.

_See, this is why you can't trust outsiders. They're all the same, every last one._

The lingering taste of his previous arousal turns bitter in his mouth, and Rin scolds himself for forgetting that to outsiders, all Faris are monsters, inhuman. He had thought the boy, without sight to judge him, would be different, and that makes the disappointment that settles in his stomach all the more heavy and unbearable.

"Relax, if I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead by now."

Rin deals with this the way he always does; he faces it head-on with a defiant grin, daring it to try and get the best of him. He always, always, wins, and this is no exception. Even when something inside him breaks a little, he shoves past it and doesn't look back.

* * *

When Rin comments on the boy's strange sight that seems to come and go without warning, he suddenly remembers an old folktale that had been popular during dinners around a roaring fire.

It tells of a man who looked upon the sacred goddess in her true form and was blinded, for the divine is too much for mortal eyes to perceive. The goddess, in her infinite wisdom and mercy, granted him mindsight so that he may see the world the way it truly is, without the confines of physical eyes.

Rin had loved that tale as a child, because the idea that someone could see—truly _see_—the nature of things had been romantic to him. He'd had impossible notions of meeting someone outside his clan who could look at him and see Rin for what he really is.

He should have known better than to hope; every time the boy flinches away from him is another stab into the heart of his foolish childhood fantasy. But that's fine in its own way, he thinks, because he needs to grow up quickly anyway and this is a perfect start for him.

Rin tells himself it's not resentment that makes him roughly shove meat into the boy's mouth, and that it's not satisfaction that lights him up when he sees the boy choke helplessly, sees him at his mercy.

Still, he needs the boy alive so Rin eases up on him, and forces himself to be gentle. It's hard simply because he's just not used to it at all, but once his initial anger had subsided and the boy had calmed down somewhat, Rin finds that it's not that difficult after all. Something about this boy is begging for someone to take care of him, and even if Rin normally hates that kind of thing, it reminds him a bit of Gou so he doesn't mind all that much.

Rin lets it slip about being sent after him, and he wouldn't have made a fuss over it if the boy hadn't mentioned him 'working for them'.

He warns the boy to never speak of that again, white-hot anger making his whole body tremble. Rin both hates and desires the look on the boy's face as he nods fearfully, both despises and longs for the way his voice sounds so meek and submissive.

"Get some sleep. We're leaving at dawn."

Maybe a few hours of sleep would wipe away the tumult of emotions roiling in his gut.

* * *

The first half of their journey is uneventful, but Rin can feel the tension between them stretching to an uneasy truce. It's a waiting game, waiting to see who would snap first. Waiting to see if the boy had the guts to attempt an escape, or if Rin had been wrong about the strength he had seen that first night in the cave.

Every night, Rin keeps watch over his captive with keen red eyes, letting himself rest only when he's absolutely certain that the boy is asleep. It is on one of those nights, when they are but a day's travel from the mountain where Master waits and it's deep enough into summer that they can sleep under the stars without freezing to death, that Rin first hears it.

"Haru..." the boy murmurs in his sleep. His face is scrunched up, with tears clinging to his sugar brown lashes, and Rin feels a jolt of annoyance at the way the boy seems to hold that name close to him. He speaks it with such reverence and tenderness that it makes Rin want to crush something in his fist.

The boy's breathing shallows, his voice rising as he thrashes around, calling _Haru, Haru, I'm here, don't leave me_ over and over again until Rin is sick and tired of hearing it.

He crawls over to the boy to shake him awake, but the boy seems to have other ideas. His dark, lightless eyes fly open at Rin's touch and he launches himself at Rin with such force it almost topples him. Rin's arms instinctively wrap around the trembling body pressed against him.

"Haru," the boy sobs, his hands roaming all over Rin's surprised face. His index finger drags across a sharp incisor, and before Rin can even react, the boy is scrambling backward as fast as he can, cradling his bleeding finger against his chest.

Rin watches the light come into the boy's eyes, signalling that he's using his weird sight again.

"You're not Haru."

Rin rolls his eyes. "Of course not. As if I want to be called something as stupid-sounding as Haru anyway."

"I'm Rin," he continues, deciding that now would be as good a time as any for a late introduction. "And don't you forget it."

"Um, nice to meet you, R-Rin." The boy looks bewildered, as if he can't believe that he's talking this way with someone who is currently delivering him to some unknown fate.

Rin doesn't know what has come over him either, but maybe he's a bit jealous of the person this boy had been calling for so earnestly. Since that first night, he had managed to keep his attraction to the boy to manageable levels, but it rears up and strains at the tight reins he put on it every once in a while. Tonight the pull is exceptionally strong, and it's all Rin could do to hold it back.

Had it been any other person but the one Master had tasked him to obtain, he wouldn't have hesitated to act, but Rin knows he can't bear to form attachments to someone he is sure would be easily used against him. He can't handle worrying for another on top of worrying for himself and Gou.

"And you?" he prompts. Knowing his name wouldn't hurt, he supposes. It's just a name, it wouldn't mean anything, it's just to make it easier since calling him 'boy' is getting to be annoying.

"Eh?" the boy tilts his head to the side, even more confusion marring his expression.

"Your name," Rin enunciates clearly as if he's talking to a toddler.

The boy's weak reply is lost in the whistling desert winds. Rin leans in closer, his face inches away from the boy's. "What was that?"

"Makoto," the word floats between them like a leaf falling from a date palm. His gaze wanders down to thin, cracked lips pressed tightly together. Rin gulps audibly; this is bad.

_Damn it, I want to know what he tastes like._

With his pulse pounding erratically, he grabs Makoto's brown hair—_ah it feels a bit like hay, but softer_—and pushes his face closer. The shock he sees glittering in Makoto's strange eyes makes him all the more desirable to Rin. He inches closer, breathing in Makoto's fear until it fills him up, until he can think of nothing other than the boy he holds in his hands.

Just then, the howling of a chimera pierces through the sound of the wind. In a flash, Rin is back to his feet.

"Stay here," he orders, his nose twitching as he scents the wind. The smell of wet hound and blood is thick, and it's coming from downwind. That usually means it's a whole pack out hunting, and that makes even Rin nervous since he has Makoto to worry about as well.

He looks back at Makoto who is staring at him with pupils dilated in fear. "Don't worry. Just do as I say and nothing bad will happen."

With that, he leaps high into the air for a better vantage point. The sooner he can take care of the chimera pack, the better. The wind slashes at his exposed cheeks, whipping his red hair into his eyes, and something dark bubbles up in the back of his mind.

The thrill of the hunt hums in his blood. Rin licks his lips in anticipation, his mouth widening into a toothy grin.

_Let the massacre begin._

* * *

A/N: Don't worry HaruMako shippers, my OTP remains the same. Rin was just practically screaming to be given at least a chapter for his past and considering my plans for his involvement with Makoto and Haru, he needed to be fleshed out a bit more. Also, wanted to try writing a bit of RinMako as an experiment. Surprisingly, I kinda liked it...

But yeah, still going for HaruMako endgame XD


	5. (5) Makoto

Makoto watches his captor—_Rin_, he reminds himself—disappear into the darkness with a growing sense of trepidation. The bloodcurdling howls that had broken through the whistling winds hadn't been anything like Makoto would have expected from wild animals; they are the guttural, messy kind of sounds that belong only in nightmares, and this time he's all alone with no Haru to soothe the bad dreams away.

He doesn't understand the ringing laughter that had burst from Rin's mouth when he gave chase to the chimeras. How can someone laugh so freely in the face of such creatures? Perhaps, Makoto thinks, it takes a certain kind of strength, the kind that Makoto knows he lacks, to greet danger head-on without cowering. Haru has it, since he stands between Makoto and Leader, fearless and defiant, and Rin has it in spades, since he seems to revel in the thought of dealing with chimeras while Makoto can't help but fold in on himself and hope and pray for the best.

Tonight, that's exactly what he does; he curls into a shivering ball and burrows deeper into the thin blankets that had served as a makeshift bed. He usually dislikes the dark, but tonight, the dark is infinitely preferable because he's afraid of Seeing too much. This is the first time he's gotten this close to chimeras, but he's heard enough about them from reading the hushed conversations that he sometimes accidentally Sees when he's still half-asleep and his Sight is obstinately roving around his surroundings against his will. He's gotten a little better with controlling it, but it has a habit of acting up when his mind is distracted.

Now is one of those times.

His Sight follows Rin leaping from the tops of the cliffs that they had passed the day earlier. His dark red hair and his sharp teeth are illuminated in the moonlight, and it's a savage yet oddly riveting sight that Makoto's never seen before.

"Where are you hiding?" Makoto reads the words on Rin's lips.

The feral light in his eyes is frightening, but Makoto is too helpless to turn away. The fear is clouding his mind, making him unable to control his Sight, and every moment he spends waiting for the next chimera roar is not helping one bit.

"Found you."

_No! I don't want to see..._

But his Sight, in its cruelty, shows him everything. The severe curve of the scorpion tail whipping wildly in anticipation of feeding, the powerful jaws lined with two rows of fangs dripping with thick saliva, the rough fur along its back standing on edge, the great big paws tipped with claws longer than the length of Makoto's hand, all these he Sees without meaning to. His breath comes faster, his heart thudding loudly in his chest as he makes fruitless attempts to stop Seeing.

But it's no use, not when he's this paralysed with fear. He has no choice but to watch. His nails dig into the meat of his palm, and he's fairly sure that he's drawn blood, but this little pain is not enough to break his Sight's hold on his mind.

Then, Rin comes upon the pack of chimeras like a sandstorm, all whirling limbs and flashing eyes. He jumps right into the fray with no trace of hesitation. He goes straight for the nearest one, grappling with it until he's shoved its gaping maw into the sand.

Rin isn't even close to half the size of the smallest one, but that doesn't stop him. He kicks and punches with reckless abandon, and even when one grazes his arm and leaves a long shallow gash, he doesn't slow down.

Makoto should be relieved that he's getting rid of the chimeras so easily, but there's something dark written on Rin's face that makes him even more afraid than the chimeras. The delight in his grin as he tears the tail off one monster, as he rips out the throat of another with his bare hands, it's all too much. Too much blood, too much fur and teeth and guts lying scattered on the desert sand.

_Stop it. Please..._

His Sight refuses to listen to him. Makoto clenches his eyes shut, but the images just keep coming.

The chimera pack scatters, yelping like wounded animals. Only one remains, huddling close against the cliff wall farthest from Rin.

"Last one, huh?" Rin's lips say as he saunters over to the lone creature. Rin walks among the scattered eviscerated chimera corpses without batting an eyelid, like he's merely taking a leisurely stroll.

Rin is just being thorough, Makoto tries to tell himself. If he doesn't get rid of this one, it might come after them and that would be too dangerous especially if it strikes when they least expect it. But something in the way the chimera holds itself, like it's protecting something, tugs at Makoto.

Then he sees it. A chimera cub hiding behind the flanks of the first one. One of its legs looks shriveled; with that leg, running fast enough to escape would be near-impossible.

As Rin comes ever closer, the adult chimera's jaws open in a terrible roar that Makoto swears he can almost hear. Rin tosses his head defiantly and keeps moving towards the two chimera.

At first, when Makoto sees Rin register the presence of the cub, he thinks that maybe Rin would decide to let them go after all. He sees Rin pause, and thinks back on the muttered apology as he knocked Makoto out, remembers the little kindnesses on their journey like the keffiyeh on his head and the larger portions of water Rin silently gives him.

But then Rin's mouth widens into a grin.

_No!_

Thick, ropey blood arcs high into the air, the chimera's still weakly-beating heart crushed in Rin's fist. The bigger chimera drops to the sand, kicking up a flurry of dust that obscures his Sight for a moment.

When the dust clears, the cub is gently nudging the corpse beside it, nipping at it when it refuses to move.

Just then, it's like losing Mother all over again.

_I can't breathe._

He gasps, fingers trembling uncontrollably, flashes of cold, still hands clutching his arms and memories of dirt under his fingernails as he tries to give his mother the proper burial she deserves. It all comes back to him, and although he had thought he'd come to terms with it three years ago, seeing the cub desperately nuzzling its mother's side tears the scars wide open, only this time there is no Haru to help him push past the pain.

Tears flow freely from his eyes, and his Sight finally seems to take pity on him. His vision slowly darkens.

The last thing he sees before it goes completely dark is Rin reaching for the cub with bloodstained hands.

* * *

It takes a while for Rin to come back, and in the time between his Sight going dark and Rin's return, Makoto manages to scrape together some semblance of control.

"Makoto? Still awake?" Rin calls out tentatively. It sounds a bit strange, hearing his name after so many days of being addressed as 'boy' or 'you'. Makoto finds himself subconsciously comparing the way Rin says it to the way Haru does. Rin sounds a bit hesitant, like he isn't sure he's saying it right, while Haru calls his name like it's something he's always been meant to say, the word seeming to come as easily as breathing to him.

_Haru..._

"Look! I got us some fresh meat!" Rin's voice turns excited at the prospect of a change from their usual diet of bland cooked oats and tough dried meat.

Makoto doesn't stir from underneath the blankets; he has no appetite, especially not after seeing all that blood. Maybe if Rin thinks he's asleep, he won't push the matter any further.

He hears Rin come closer to him and stoop down beside his prone form. The hand on his shoulder feels damp, or it may just be his imagination, but Makoto suddenly can't shake the image of Rin's red-soaked hands. He shudders and rolls away, taking the blankets with him.

"Makoto?" He can't honestly say that he can read Rin's voice—not the way he can with Haru's—but he thinks he detects hurt there.

"I-I'm not hungry," Makoto stutters. "But thanks."

It's a poor attempt to re-establish the truce they had unofficially declared before Rin had rushed off into the night, but it seems to be enough for the red-haired boy.

"All right, then," Rin replies, decidedly more upbeat now. "Maybe in the morning?"

"Y-Yeah," the weak response comes.

For the first time since that night in the cave, Makoto doesn't slip into slumber easily. He tosses and turns, only managing to sleep sometime in the dark before dawn, and even then, in his dreams he is drowning in an endless pool of thick, dark blood.

* * *

True to his word, once morning dawns, Rin has a relatively rich spread of food waiting to greet Makoto. To speed things along, Makoto calls upon his Sight to help him eat. Today, it responds easily, perhaps as a sort of apology for its errant behaviour the night before. Makoto decides not to confront Rin about the run-in with the chimeras; he doesn't want to be accused of spying when he really hadn't meant to use his Sight. Besides, the sooner he forgets the horrors of the previous night, the better.

Still, a night plagued by nightmares makes for poor rest, so Makoto finds himself drifting off as he gulps down the thick stew. His forehead smacks against the lip of the wooden bowl in his hand, splashing a bit of the stew on himself.

Rin chuckles at his consequent jerking up in surprise, and Makoto can't help but think that Rin has a nice smile when he's like this, all jovial and friendly. Makoto returns his smile, albeit a bit uneasily, because it's like this Rin and last night's Rin are two completely different people, and for once, Makoto's Sight can't tell him which of the two is the real Rin. That scares him more than he'd like to admit, because between his whole world being turned upside down, his Sight is one of the few things he had thought he can rely on.

But when Rin reaches over and swipes a stray glob of stew from his chin, laughing at him teasingly and telling him he eats like a baby, Makoto decides that it would be nice if Rin stayed like this all the time.

Once the meal is over, they start packing up. It's a familiar routine by now, familiar enough that Makoto can help with the little things. It must be odd, having a prisoner help with rolling up the blankets, but Makoto doesn't want to just sit there and do nothing. The voice in his head, the one that sounds like Haru, chides and reprimands him for making things easy for his captor to take him away. Makoto silently replies, as he always does, that perhaps making friends with his captor can be a way for him to escape.

Sometime during the journey towards the mountain range looming over them, Makoto had given up on escaping through ordinary means; Rin is obviously too fast, too alert even for someone without Makoto's handicap. After thinking on it, he had decided on a new course of action: befriend Rin and try to convince him to let Makoto go. Besides, traveling in silence is lonely, and Makoto has never been good at handling loneliness.

It had been a welcome surprise—one he hadn't been expecting at all—when Rin himself had reached out and introduced himself. He ignores the niggling guilt in his stomach when he thinks how cruel he's being in toying with someone else's feelings for his own gain.

When everything is ready, Rin picks Makoto up like always, only this time he's not silent like before. As he races across the sand dunes with enough speed to whip up a whirlwind of dust in their wake, Rin speaks of so many things, like the oasis that they're aiming to reach before sunset and how the water is so blue it looks like a piece of the sky. Makoto listens to the sound of Rin's voice, and it's like he can almost see the images that Rin is talking about. It's nothing like his Sight, where the images are unmistakeably clear; it's more like a feeling that brings up a picture of rippling blue ringed by swaying green, and it's like nothing Makoto's ever experienced. It's similar to Haru's paintings, but at the same time it's completely different.

It's nice, peaceful, so of course it doesn't last for long.

"Ah, it's a good thing we had that meat, huh?" Rin finishes off his tangent about the difficulties of traveling on foot over desertland compared to traveling in the southern oases. Makoto can hear the grin, tinged with a little nostalgia, in his voice.

"Yeah," he nods in reply. Today's journey is over rougher terrain that takes more of Rin's energy to cross, so it really is good that they had something more substantial than oats and gruel.

"I don't usually cook chimera but—"

_Eh?_

It hadn't occured to him to question where the meat had come from. In hindsight, it's obvious; Rin had returned with the meat immediately after he had dealt with the chimera pack after all.

_How could I have been so stupid?_

Bile rises violently up his throat, its bitter taste singeing his tongue. He only just barely manages to squirm out of Rin's arms and tumble gracelessly to the ground before he empties the contents of his stomach on the hot sand.

"Makoto! What's wrong?!"

On his hands and knees, he heaves and heaves until there's nothing left to throw up. The image of the cub and its mother is burned into his mind, and Makoto feels sick when he remembers how he'd slurped up every last drop of the stew, grateful for something so filling. The chunks of partially-digested meat he had thrown up mock him, and Makoto imagines the accusing eyes of the chimera cub staring at him, whispering_ Why?_ in a voice that reminds him of himself.

_Why didn't you save her?_

Rin rubs his hand up and down Makoto's back, but it doesn't soothe him at all.

"I saw what you did," Makoto whispers, unable to stop himself from shivering. "With the chimera and its cub."

"Oh," a surprised Rin says. "Okay."

The fact that Rin admits it so easily, and the obvious confusion on his face tells him that Rin doesn't find anything wrong with what he'd done.

"Why?" Makoto's voice sounds harsh even to his own ears. Rin rears back as if he was slapped.

"Why did you have to kill them?"

Makoto searches Rin for any trace of remorse but when he finds nothing but bewilderment, a vengeful voice in his head repeats _'Haru wouldn't have done that' _until it becomes a mantra that eventually bursts free from his mouth.

Anger darkens Rin's eyes, and he looks so much like last night's Rin that Makoto immediately regrets his words. Not because he doesn't mean them, but because they're something he should have kept to himself.

"Haru this, Haru that!" Rin glares at him. "Well, he's not here. I am. Deal with it."

It may just be Makoto's imagination, but under the venom of Rin's words and the angry flush on his face, there is a faint sense of bitter loneliness.

For the first time, Rin doesn't carry him cradled in his arms. He picks him up and slings him across his shoulder like a sack.

* * *

Every step, every leap is jarring, his abdomen uncomfortably pressed to Rin's shoulderbone. The blood rushing to his head is making him dizzy, so he releases his Sight in the hopes that it would help.

It does, a bit, and Makoto wonders if maybe he should have tried to be more understanding. Maybe it's him who's not normal because he thinks even monsters like chimeras are capable of feeling emotions just like humans. It isn't really strange to think nothing of killing animals for food, is it? But no matter how he tries, he sees himself in that little chimera cub that had lost its mother right in front of its eyes. And the notion that he had unknowingly eaten the flesh of either of those two—maybe even both—had been too much.

It had felt wrong, and in the end, Makoto supposes that's where he and Rin are different. Rin had had no qualms about eating the chimera meat even when he had known where it had come from.

Thinking this way is hypocritical anyway, since Makoto has surely eaten meat from other animals before. It's just that seeing the chimera cub like that had dredged up memories that he'd rather keep buried. In the end, he convinces himself that the fault lies with him for being too sensitive and squeamish. It's his fault and no one else's that the events of that night had hit him this hard; he's much too soft, too weak-hearted, just like Leader said.

He can't be a child forever, always cowering behind someone—first his mother, then Haru—whenever he's faced with something he can't handle. Eventually, he has to grow up, and he supposes that this, accepting that the chimeras' deaths had been necessary, is a small step in the right direction.

Now if only he can make himself take that step.

Makoto sighs, his head aching from the heat, from dizziness, and from trying to force his mind to warp his ideals. He's met with little success, so he tries another tactic and puts himself in Rin's shoes.

Rin, who has clearly shown that he intends to keep Makoto alive, at least long enough for them to get to their destination. Rin, who carries the same world-weariness as Haru, but deals with it in a completely different way. Rin, who faces the world with courage born from confidence in his own formidable strength. The Rin that Makoto Sees when he looks into those dark red eyes is the kind of person who wouldn't think twice about reaching out and grabbing whatever he needs or desires.

In his heart, Makoto can't blame Rin, not really, because at the end of the day, he's just doing what he needs to in order to survive. It's no different to what Makoto is trying to do—trying to worm his way past Rin's defenses to save his own skin. It's just that Makoto's method of survival is a bit more subtle, but still no less selfish, in his opinion.

He'd just been overwhelmed before, and it had messed with his thoughts, causing him to push the blame onto the nearest target. That had been wrong simply because it's not right for him to expect Rin to share his perspective on the world. Everyone is entitled to their own set of ideals, Makoto muses, and no one person has the right to attempt to forcefully alter another's.

With those thoughts, he mumbles quiet apologies against the plane of Rin's back. Once for being presumptuous, twice for rejecting him when he had only been trying to help.

At first he thinks Rin musn't have heard him because his words gain no visible reaction from the redhead.

Then Makoto yelps in surprise when Rin swings him around to his usual position in his arms. He scrambles for his Sight, but Rin's breath against his cheeks makes thinking too much of a strenuous activity, makes his Sight respond sluggishly. Makoto's pulse beats rapidly, but whether it's due to fear or something else, Makoto isn't quite sure.

"Sure, I'll forgive you," Rin's voice encompasses him like a vice. "But only if you never_ ever _mention Haru again."

"I can't," the answer comes quickly. Makoto doesn't even have to think about it; to never mention Haru again would be impossible, not because Makoto is being stubborn, but because Haru is such a large, constant presence in his mind that Makoto can't guarantee that he can avoid mentioning him even if he tried.

And it feels too much like Rin is trying to take Haru from him, and he finds whatever good will he's started to feel for his captor begin to scatter in the wake of Rin's anger. For the first time, without Haru, Makoto stands his ground.

"I can't," he repeats, resolutely shaking his head.

_You can't take Haru from me._

His Sight shows him an expression on Rin's face that shakes his newfound courage. He can hardly recognize the boy who had laughingly told him to eat more neatly just a few hours before; the person before him is staring at him with a possessiveness that threatens to devour Makoto whole. Still, he returns the crimson gaze steadily, vowing silently that he would never relent to such a request, not even if it comes from Rin.

When Rin reaches out and clamps a hand on his jaw, there is only a brief flash of terror before images rush into his mind like a violent sandstorm.

_A girl, red hair pooling limply across her bony shoulders, with angry red welts across her back. Long lines of children with chains around their limbs, like Haru had before Leader took them away. Dark liquid too crimson to be anything but blood, so much of it that the floor is a glistening, sickening red. Clumps of hair still attached to a scalp. A lone finger, ragged at the edge where it had been torn from its owner. Gaping, bleeding holes where eyes should be. Mouths open in silent agony._

A sharp scream startles Makoto out of the carnage his Sight had chosen to reveal. It continues, high and long, until he realises he's the source.

He is on his back, Rin—not the scary one, but the one that Makoto is starting to like just a bit—hovering above him with a worried expression. Makoto gasps, turning to the side and dry-heaving until his throat is raw.

Rin's hands stroke his back softly.

"Makoto?" the dissonance between this gentle Rin and the glimpses he'd seen of the other Rin is jarring, and it makes Makoto gingerly shy away from Rin's touch in confusion. He pulls the remnants of his earlier defiance around him like a shroud. He's in no shape to attempt to be civil, let alone friendly, so it would be better to distance himself for a bit until he has himself under control.

Just because he's decided to accept that Rin's way of thinking differs from his doesn't mean that it would be easy for him to reconcile with the redhead. Especially now that he has to sort through the images he had Seen and re-evaluate what he thinks of Rin. It's becoming a trend, him thinking he has a good grasp of what Rin is like only to be proven wrong.

Unpredictable, like a desert sandstorm. That is Rin.

Rin sighs, a sad, resigned sound.

"Sorry," he mumbles. "Sometimes, I just—" he trails off, gesturing vaguely.

"It's fine," Makoto responds, more out of habit than anything. He's still reeling from the sensory overload, still trying to make sense of what he had Seen as well as puzzling through the seemingly new abilities his Sight has revealed.

The fact that he had Seen all that after Rin touched him can't be a coincidence, but this had never happened before. Contact has never triggered his Sight like this, and it baffles Makoto as to why his Sight had decided to reveal this now. It had many prior opportunites to manifest this way when he and Haru slept together in the same bed, but Makoto has never Seen even a flash of anything, not even when he's pressed close to Haru.

Were those images from Rin's past? Or something happening right now? Makoto isn't sure, but if that had been something Rin had seen, then..

It wouldn't excuse his treatment of the chimera, but it explains it. To live through all those horrors, Rin must have had to harden himself against caring for things that would get in the way of his survival.

Of course, this is all conjecture and may be completely off the mark, but Makoto chooses to believe because it's the only way he can force himself to continue with his plan to get close to Rin. It may sound ruthless, to befriend someone for his own gain, but Makoto is desperate. To survive until he can be with Haru again, he'd stoop this low if he has to.

"Let's stop here for today," Rin says before turning away. They're in the middle of the desert, and the oasis they had been aiming for is nowhere in sight. The sun is still half-sunk into the distant horizon—they still have at least an hour of daylight left—but Makoto doesn't question Rin's decision.

"Okay."

* * *

Sometime during the night, while Makoto is wavering between sleep and wakefulness, he Sees.

"Makoto."

Familiar lips forming his name. He knows that chin, that exquisite brow that crinkles whenever its owner is deep in thought, those dark locks that sometimes shimmer beautifully when the moonlight hits it just right.

_Haru?_

"Tch, I probably can't reach you like this, huh? I'm probably just being an idiot, but—"

Deep blue eyes stare back at him from under dark lashes. He Sees Haru lying in bed with clean blankets pulled up to his chin, the familiar tip of Makoto's walking stick peeping out from under the white cloth. He Sees Haru's face, and its familiarity makes bittersweet longing clench around his heart. His temple throbs with the effort of maintaining his Sight, the pain more acute considering how far Haru must be from him. Makoto ignores it, because how can he think about something so trivial when he can See Haru right now?

"But if there's a chance that your Sight could bridge the gap between us..."

Makoto longs to crawl into bed with Haru, but he knows, in the depths of his mind, that this isn't real, that he isn't really this close to Haru. It's just his Sight playing cruel tricks on him, making him believe that he can touch Haru if only he extends his hands a bit.

"I want you to know that I'll find you."

The determined set of Haru's mouth, coupled with the vehemence in his voice, makes tears well up at the corners of Makoto's eyes.

_Okay_, he wants to say, to reassure Haru that his words have reached him, but no matter how much he raises his voice, it won't go through.

"So just wait. Someday, somehow, I will find you."

Makoto clutches these words to his heart. He finds strength in Haru, even if he can only See this little bit of him. Even just this little bit is enough.

He watches Haru roll onto his side, his eyes closed, and thinks he's gone to sleep.

_Good night, Haru._

Makoto whispers it into the night, so softly that Rin hardly stirs from his position beside the campfire. He's sure Haru can't have possibly heard it, but he receives a reply anyway.

"Good night, Makoto."

* * *

They pass the oasis with little fanfare, Rin still so subdued and sullen that he hardly spares even a glance at the sparkling blue water he had been so excitedly talking about. Still, before the oasis disappears into the distance, Makoto stares and commits it to memory. Impossibly clear water, palm trees with their fronds drooping so low they just barely skim the placid surface of the water, a paradise in the midst of the harsh desert sands. He can't help but think that Haru would have loved to see it.

* * *

After a few days of travel, Makoto has finally managed to steer him and Rin back to being almost-friends. And if there is still that little bit of underlying tension whenever Makoto flinches away before realising what he's doing, it goes largely unaddressed.

It helps that every night, he Sees Haru, who talks about how he's escaped from Leader, how he's fortunate enough to be traveling with some good people. It renews his hope, because if Haru can escape Leader, then surely Makoto can free himself too. Then, once Haru finds him, maybe they can find a secluded place somewhere, a place just for the two of them where no one would bother them.

_That would be nice._

Haru speaks as if Makoto is right there with him, so Makoto carefully hangs on to each word. This way, it's almost like they're beside each other just like always, and Makoto is grateful for this unexpected blessing. During the day, despite his many attempts, he cannot See Haru, but in the still silence of the night, his Sight eagerly shows him his best friend, the images coming so clearly and easily that he doesn't even have to focus all that much. Just another quirk in his ability that he's learned to get used to, along with the thankfully brief flashes he gets when Rin touches him.

Even if he can only have Haru while the stars shine in their cold light, even if he wakes up alone with Haru's name begging to escape his lips, Makoto thinks that as long as he has this, he can get through another day. As long as Haru is alive somewhere, he can survive on the hope that they'll be reunited again.

"We're here." Rin's voice snaps him out of his thoughts.

Makoto's Sight crawls up towards the mountaintop, following Rin's outstretched finger. There's a palace, gaudy and bright, marring its side like a scar. From here, he can't see much other than that, but there is a sense of despair clinging to the mountain, so thick he can almost feel it on his skin like an oily film. The sheer rock face in front of them seems unscalable, but Makoto assumes that they'll be climbing it anyway; it's the only way to get to the palace after all, and everything up until now has pointed to that palace as the destination they had been trying to reach for the past few weeks.

Rin's lip is curled in distaste, but he makes no other comment about the palace.

"Hang on to me." Rin warns him. Makoto has learned that when Rin says things like that, it's usually best to listen first and question later.

Makoto tightens his arms around Rin's neck, bracing himself for whatever reckless move Rin has planned for them. Dissuading him with mentions of injuring one or both of them has proved fruitless so far, so Makoto doesn't bother trying.

Rin springs up onto the bare rock, then starts sprinting up the almost vertical surface. His legs are strong enough that he can use them to propel himself upward without his feet slipping, but Makoto's heart still jumps to his throat and stays there for those harrowing couple of minutes as they fly across the mountain's face. He presses his face into the front of Rin's shirt, his steady, unhurried heartbeat an anchor to remind himself that Rin is strong and wouldn't let him fall.

* * *

When they reach the palace, they are greeted by two tall young men, both with red hair and sharp teeth like Rin, coming toward them. There is another between them, a large blond man waddling forward, his smarmy grin sending unpleasant shudders up Makoto's spine.

"Rin! You're back!"

Rin stiffens, then slowly lowers Makoto to the ground. Once his feet touch the packed dirt, Makoto finds himself pulled forward, closer to the fat man. Oily hands with a sickly sweet smell of whitedawn flowers press against his cheeks, and his face is turned this way and that. He must have passed some sort of inspection because the next thing he knows, the blond man is guffawing loudly and waving dismissively at him. Then he is following Rin into the palace after having been mercifully released from the grasps of the man that he assumes is the master of this place.

Everything is a blur of gold and polished wood, and the air is heavy with frankincense. Even his Sight seems to be overwhelmed by all the opulence. He can already feel the beginnings of a headache throbbing in his temples.

Rin leads him to a large room, larger than the one he had in Leader's outpost and a lot more luxurious. Rich fabric, gold-tipped furniture, so much wealth that at first Makoto thinks he's been led to the wrong room.

But Rin makes a grand gesture, followed by a mocking bow, although he doesn't seem to be mocking Makoto but himself.

"Welcome," he intones dryly. "To hell."

* * *

A/N: Taking a break from studying for finals and I end up writing fanfiction...Free! has seriously taken over my life. Send help.

If Makoto's thoughts are a bit disjointed and contradictory, it's because he's struggling between empathizing with Rin and his own beliefs. He just seems like the type who would keep trying to see the best in people, so he keeps trying to understand why Rin does what he does. I'm not sure how much of that confusion I managed to convey, but I tried :/

Now I feel kinda bad for making Makoto go through all that...


End file.
